Chapter 20! Terrific! I want to warn all of you reading that this chapter is when Harry opens up about his abuse, all of it. It's a shorter chapter but I think it's powerful in it's own way. I hope you appreciate it. I had a hard time writing it in a way that described it accurately so review and tell me how you feel.

This was it. This was the moment that he was going to do something utterly Gryffindor. All of the founders had been pushing Harry to talk to Severus the entire afternoon. He had still been unsure there were so many reasons not to open up. Then he had said it. The words he had dreamed of hearing but had never thought it possible.

'I care about you.'

At those words Harry's mind had begun racing. No adult had ever said anything like that ever. As a little boy he had always dreamed of having his aunt and uncle say something like that to him. By the time he was 6 years old he buried that dream deep within himself. The words hit him like thunder and before he knew it he was holding onto Snape like a toddler and bawling his eyes out as he hadn't in years.

When he came to himself he had been embarrassed. He had half expected Severus to push him away disgusted but he didn't do that. He just moved them over to the couch so that they could be more comfortable. Now Harry was leaning into the man who had an arm around his shoulder in support. It was another one of those times when he threw all caution to the wind and just spoke.

"They never liked me. They never loved me." He began.

"I was left on the doorstep in the middle of the night and my Aunt told me that that was the worst mornings of her life opening the door to my screaming. According to her I came to their home with nothing but a dirty blanket and a letter telling them I was their responsibility. My earliest memories are of hunger and darkness. At first my relatives merely ignored me. They would forget to feed me, or change me. I couldn't learn to use the toilets before Dudley did so I was always dirty."

Harry let himself go silent for a while letting those old memories flow through him. Severus said nothing he merely waited.

"They did everything in their power to make me feel small and unimportant. I was a freak and I didn't deserve food every day. I was a runt who didn't need a bedroom the cupboard under the stairs would do perfectly for someone as worthless as me. That was the first word they taught me. Freak. That was my name, although I learned to answer to anything that was said in a certain tone. The tone you use when you talk about something extremely unpleasant or ugly. I didn't know my real name until I went to school."

The memory of extreme embarrassment when the teacher had called his name and he had not known it came into his mind. Dudley had laughed very hard that day.

"As soon as I could walk I was set to do chores. If they were going to be forced to keep me then I should earn my keep. At first it was just cleaning but as I grew bigger I had more responsibilities. I would cook every meal, I would do all the garden and lawn work and I would clean most of the house. Aunt Petunia did some chores, things she didn't trust the stupid freak to do but Uncle Vernon never did any."

The purple face of his fat uncle screaming at him filled his mind and he stiffened. Part of him wanted to stop but it was as if the flood gates had been opened he couldn't stop it.

"Uncle Vernon was always really rough with me but he never hit me until I did my first accidental magic. I was four at the time. I hadn't been fed in at least a week and I thought I would die. I had been locked in my cupboard for two days and the stench of the small cramped space was unbearable. I remember just wishing very very hard to be out of my cupboard with some food. Then there was a tingling in my gut and suddenly I was in the kitchen and the fridge was open. There was so much food. It was the middle of the night and I thought maybe I could feed myself some and then go back into my cupboard without anyone noticing."

Harry shivered. This was one of the harder memories since it was the first time it had happened.

"They noticed. Uncle Vernon came down the stairs to find me stuffing myself with food in the middle of the kitchen. The shade of purple his face turned would've been funny if it hadn't been so deadly. I almost didn't survive that night. He punched me hard right in the side of my head and sent me flying. Then he was dragging me to my cupboard. He ripped off my gigantic T-shirt and suddenly there was pain all over my back. He was whipping me. After what felt like an eternity and I was screaming for him to stop he pushed me back into my cupboard and he told me that if I didn't die he would make me regret it."

If Harry would have turned his face away from the fire to look at the man he was looking at he would have seen a look of absolute fury. The amount of anger no one had been able to invoke in Severus Snape in a long time.

"Something changed with Uncle Vernon that night. Both of them knew I was a wizard and had hoped that I wouldn't show off being freaky. Before that night I was merely an annoyance like a piece of gum on the bottom of his shoe. After that though I became something more. I was the reason it rained or his favorite team lost. I was the cause of all of life's difficulties. I think I also became a tool to him something to use at his will."

Harry curled up on himself then he was about to tell Snape something he had told no one. He hadn't even told Salazar.

"My magic only protected me once from Uncle Vernon. It only needed to do it once. I was five when that happened. He came into the house drunk in the middle of the night. Aunt Petunia and Dudley were gone visiting family so it was just him and me. He dragged me up the stairs into the guest room and told me to pull my pants down."

Harry did not notice Snape stiffen beside him he was caught up in the memory.

"It all felt very wrong. I don't know what tipped me off, whether it was the smell of bourbon or the strange hungry look in his eye but something felt very wrong and scary. I knew better than to say no to Uncle however. I pulled down my pants and my uncle told me to take off my underpants too. I didn't understand but I did. I felt very scared and wrong that night. As he grabbed me to molest me. For I know now that was what was going to happen that familiar tingling happened in my stomach. This time though instead of taking me away to some place safe my magic attacked."

Harry smiled suddenly this was both one of his worst and best memories.

"The magic rushed out of me and pushed him back against the wall hard. I heard a crack and knew that he wasn't going to get up for a while. I pulled up me clothing again glad it was over but it wasn't. My magic had cursed him. I still haven't found the name of it or if it even exists and I've looked. I walked over to my Uncle and saw that instead of bleeding from his head he was bleeding heavily from his pants. Part of me wished that I would've let him lie there and bleed out but instead like a good little freak I called the muggle emergency services. As they were taking him away in the ambulance I heard one of the men say to the other. 'Poor Bloke goes out to get hammered and gets his cock cut off.' Apparently my magic decided to remove any chance of him ever trying to do something like that again."

Emergency services had been able to put the part back on him since it was such a clean cut but he lost all mobility with it. Harry had learned that from listening to conversations that they had in the kitchen while he was in the cupboard. Now that that story was out in the air the other stuff would be easier.

"He never tried to do anything like that again with me. I think he feared what my magic would do if he tried. I suppose I should tell you my secret to survival in that house. That glowing you saw? It happened that first night after my Uncle whipped me with his belt. I used to call it my glowing freakishness. I haven't heard of any magic like it but it would heal me completely. It would take a lot of magic but I would feel good as new after it happened, just exhausted. I learned to hide it fast because if Vernon saw it he would beat me right then and there. I learned to control the glowing by the time I was six but sometimes I can still lose control."

Harry stared hard at the fire. What else was there to tell? Oh wait Dudley. His lard ball of his cousin.

"There are times now that I feel bad for Dudley. He was raised by two cruel people to be very cruel. He is destined to be a terrible person. As soon as his tiny brain was able to understand he was instructed to make my life awful outside of the house. He threatened anyone who could've been my friend with his fists. He and his gang would chase me around the neighborhood in a game they called 'Harry Hunting'. Dudley alone was too fat to catch me but some of his friends were very good runners and they would catch me and hold me down while he would beat on me. His parents took him out for ice cream the first time he broke my arm. They did everything in their power to make me feel worthless, unwanted, unlovable, and alone. I just don't think I'll ever be able to move on from that. I'll always wonder how someone could ever love a freak like me."

Harry was crying again and he felt like he couldn't say anything else. What else was there to say? He turned into the man who was sitting and let the tears fall silently. There was nothing more he could do. He was spent. He just cried and Severus let him. Harry fell asleep after awhile. He did not wake when Severus picked him up and carried him to his room. He wasn't awake when Snape tucked him in and placed a kiss on his forehead.