I know that this scene has been done a thousand times, which is why I was a bit anxious to write it… again. But I hope you´ll like it anyway, and that my special twist will give it at least a semblance of originality.
Still I want to say that my description of this is heavily influenced all the times I read it in the stories of other authors who are a hundred times better than me. Thank you all for those stories!
And thank you for your wonderful reviews, of course!
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Into the Pensieve
Severus Snape was tired and irritated. If there was one thing he hated more than Voldemort and the Potters, it was being out of control.
And here he was, in the home of a Potter, with the threat of Voldemort´s return hanging over him and his control shredded to pieces more than once over the course of the last twenty four hours.
And now he was to witness the pitiable events of the Potter brat´s childhood. The boy had probably gotten himself into deep trouble every other week and rescue took longer than in the wizarding world, he mused. Potter´s nature as a troublemaker had been proven to him by years and years of rule breaking, the resulting catastrophes and near-death situations. He only wondered how he could have developed this talent so young.
As the grey mists of the pensieve engulfed him, Snape found himself wishing fervently for a class of easily impressed first years. Potter didn´t behave as if he would be impressed any time soon.
Perhaps it was this whole state of extreme grumpiness paired with a lack of sleep that caused the unusual slowness in the normally so attentive spy.
When the fogs around them cleared, he found himself in a hallway that looked normal enough, that is, for muggle standards. The place breathed mediocrity and boredom in a way even Snape, who had visited a fair share of muggleborn students' houses over the years, had seldom encountered.
Snape wondered how any harm could have come to Potter in a place as ordinary as this one. But still, muggles managed to kill themselves with bread knives or other embarrassments every day.
He turned around to Potter, ready to demand an explanation of the problems to come, but Potter wasn't even looking at him. Instead, the brat was examining the hallway with nostalgic eyes and a sad little half-smile on his lips.
„I forgot how small this place was," He whispered, seemingly lost in thoughts.
„Well, you could have visited often enough if you hadn't decided to vanish from the face of the earth," Snape snarled, angry that Potter still didn't take this seriously. „But no, you had to ignore every..."
„I couldn't have visited," Potter simply answered. „The Dursleys were killed three weeks into my sixth year, and the house was sold shortly afterwards."
„Impossible. Your house was heavily warded. The Order would have known immediately!"
„Oh, but it wasn't warded anymore when the Death Eaters came," Potter replied lightly, never ceasing his inspection of the hallway as if he was conversing about the weather. „When Dumbledore decided that summer that I wouldn't return there, he lifted the protections completely. So you wouldn't have known. I only found out because Mrs Figg wrote to me, asking if she should retrieve anything from the house before it was sold. I don't know whether even Dumbledore ever found out about it.
„Now, lets see," He continued, completely ignoring Snape's shocked expression. Snape knew that Potter had never liked his muggle relations, but to talk about their murder like that – no wonder Potter had simply abandoned his friends and comrades after the Dark Lord's death when he felt so little about other persons. But that Dumbledore should have left these muggles so entirely without protection rather surprised him. It wasn't like the Headmaster to endanger persons' lives like that…
„Judging from the pictures," Potter now told him, still the impersonation of calmness. „Dudley and I should be about five or six. I don't know what exactly happened, but as it is early morning…"
Without the slightest explanation, Potter went over to a built in cupboard that was situated under the stairs and opened its door, revealing nothing but darkness and a few, hastily retreating spiders.
"No," He muttered under his breath. "I should be in the kitchen then. Please follow me, Professor."
Potter had guessed correctly. There was no mistaking the boy that stood by the oven, juggling with pans and pots. Potter-the-child looked incredibly small, barely able to reach the hearth-plates on which a variety of morning dishes were being prepared.
He looked no older than four or five, but it had always been difficult to tell the boy's age. Only now, that Snape saw the scrawny, meagre flea preparing breakfast, did he remember how skinny and huge eyed the Boy Who Lived had been during his first years of Hogwarts.
"What are you doing there?" He asked Potter-the-man now, who had wordlessly chosen a seat at the kitchen table. "Aren't you a bit young to fuss around the oven? But you probably touched everything that came in your way, danger or not."
Potter just chuckled, as if enjoying a joke only he could make out. "Something like that," He answered mildly. "Breakfast was my job since I turned five. I was always quite good at cooking, actually."
Suddenly, a trampling noise was heard outside, reminding Snape rather of that mad Hippogriff the Order had hidden in Grimmauld Place for a while.
"It seems that Dudley's coming, Professor," Potter explained. "You had better move aside a bit."
Mutely following the advice, Snape had just stepped away from the kitchen door when it was ripped open violently. A fat, ugly little boy had appeared in the doorway.
"Oh, it's you" He said, his face twisted in a grimace of disgust. "Where's mum?"
"On the phone," The younger Potter replied absently, his eyes never leaving the porridge. He seemed oddly concentrated on the easy task, as if all the world depended on breakfast being just perfect.
"I wish you had ever developed that type of concentration for Potions, Potter," Snape muttered darkly. "Perhaps your work wouldn't have been your usual complete mess, then."
"I'm afraid you simply were't terrifying enough for that, Professor."
Now what the hell did that mean? Snape found that he was beginning to seethe again. He had always felt great pride in his ability to intimidate students at will, and he had given his very best with Potter. The impertinence of that boy…
Suddenly, the fat boy left his place by the door and stamped on the other boy's foot, employing all of his considerable weight. Without wanting to, Snape winced in sympathy as he imagined the pain, but the young Potter didn't even flinch. He just kept watching the porridge, as if this event wasn't worth noticing.
"That's 'On the phone, Master Dudley' to you, freak," Dudley whined. "Who's she talking with?"
Potter just shrugged. "Don't know," He answered, only to earn a hard kick against his shin. "Master Dudley," He added sarcastically.
"Oh, I think I know what's coming now," the older Potter commented from the kitchen table. "And it's not good at all."
"You know that's not exactly a precise information, do you?" Snape growled.
"Well, I never was any good in Divination, Professor," Potter replied, actually grinning and completely ignoring the punch Dudley had just landed on his younger self's stomach.
"Don't go funny with me, freak," The fat boy hollered, his face red with anger. "Daddy says you're lucky we let you live in our house, give you clothes and food! Daddy says you must show us gratetood!"
"That's gratitude, Dudley," the child-Potter commented and his older self chuckled. "See, Professor?" He said towards Snape. "I never kept my mouth shut. Seems to be a genetical fault."
"Why is that ugly boy treating you that way?" Snape demanded to know as he once again became witness to a one-sided kicking and punching match.
Potter shrugged. "I'm no good at psychology, Professor," He answered. "But I would say because he learned it from his parents."
As if on cue, Dudley started yelling. "You're only jealous 'cause you don't have a house, and a room, and parents," He shrieked, accompanying each word with a kick to Potter's shin. "And 'cause your father was a drunk, and your mother a slut!"
And for the first time since they had entered the memory, the younger Potter reacted. Snape saw his eyes go pale with anger, the pale green of the killing curse, and suddenly, the boy looked dangerous.
The older Potter sighed, watching his incarnated past with a mixture of impatience and sympathy. "Here goes my Gryffindor side again," He said, left the table and retreated quickly to the far side of the room. "You might wish to step aside, Professor, because…"
"Don't you talk about my parents this way!" The younger Potter suddenly shouted, and shoved his cousin away from the kitchen counter.
It was a rather weak shove, and, compared to the punches the fat boy had dealt out only seconds before, seemed like nothing to Snape, but Dudley immediately started to howl with pain.
"Daddy! Daddy!" He shrieked. "Harry hit me! He hit me! Daddy!"
Suddenly, fear replaced the anger in Potter's eyes, the fear of a wounded animal in a situation with no escape. His eyes shot towards the corridor, fixed on the stairs in silent panic, while he edged away from Dudley and the oven.
And then they heard it. The loud, angry steps of a man, walking above their heads, approaching the stairs, descending them with heavy footfalls. Potter-the-child, seized by silent terror, darted through the kitchen, towards the backdoor, but Dudley had guessed his purpose and started screaming again.
"He's running, Daddy, he's trying to get through the backdoor! Get him, Daddy! He hurt me!"
Panting heavily in fear, Potter yanked the door open and was half through when large, meaty hands grabbed him by the collar and slammed him against the kitchen table. The impact drove the air out of Potter's lungs and he cried out in pain.
The mass of flesh that had thundered through the kitchen door and yanked Potter away from his escape route was in fact, as Snape noticed now with growing irritation, a rather large and very fat man with a face as read as an overripe tomato.
"What did you do to my Duddykins-boy," He shouted, banging Potter's head against the kitchen table in the rhythm of his words. Potter-the-child gasped and tried to twist out of his uncle's grip, but the man, completely oblivious to his surroundings in his fury, just grabbed him harder by the collar and dragged him out of the kitchen, into the corridor.
The last thing Snape could see before the kitchen door banged shut behind the fat man and the tiny boy was Potter's panic-stricken face, quickly losing all colour as the blood drained from his head.
"I think we should move into the corridor now, Professor," Potter-the-man calmly told Snape. "The reason this memory showed as a possible starting point for the Evanescence will happen there, I think."
"Why did that muggle do that to you, Potter," Snape asked, still too astonished to notice that he was asking his arch-nemesis a question, and a stupid one at that.
Suddenly, Potter looked tired. His hand moved through his hair in a gesture so known to Snape after years of teaching the boy in class that he didn't have to interpret it on a conscious level. Frustration, this movement meant, and resignation.
"Because I hurt his son, Professor," Potter replied. "Or at least he thought I did. Uncle Vernon never needed much reason for his actions. Let's get into the corridor now, or we will have to replay the whole sequence."
And suddenly, in a flash of understanding, Snape realized what had been wrong about this scene from the very start, and he cursed himself for not having noticed it before.
The overlarge clothes of the boy, his meagre frame and his strange lack of reaction to the other boy's provocation. All fitted together, and Snape had seen that blind panic more than one time in the eyes of a child. A child that was being abused.
This couldn't be! Snape stared after his former pupil in shock, every cell of his being denying the conclusion he had come to. He couldn't ignore what his eyes had told him, but neither could he explain Potter's strange lack of reaction to his younger self's fate.
Shouting filled his ears as he crossed the kitchen and entered the corridor, moving over to the staircase, where Potter-the-man had sat down, watching the scene unfolding with mild interest.
"Vernon has worked himself into a fury, and I was stupid enough to talk back at him," Potter explained as if Snape had missed a part of a play and had to be brought up to date to understand the plot.
"Did he do that often? Work himself into a fury?" Snape asked, noticing at the same time as Potter that he had taken on a tone completely different from his normal one. It was the way he used to speak to his Slytherins when they were in serious trouble, near the breakdown point.
Trying to be professional, Severus, aren't we? He thought dryly, but the amused grin spreading on Potter's face wiped all professionalism away in a heartbeat.
"Now Professor," he admonished, chuckling in that annoying way of his, "Don't fuss. I'm still the same, irritating brat you have been teaching for seven years. And if I managed to survive this without counselling, I can certainly do without now."
From everyone else, this would have sounded bitter and resigned. With the strange man Potter had turned into, it was the simple stating of a fact, and it seemed that this fact made all further discussion unwanted, for Potter turned away from Snape again and redirected the Professor's attention to his younger self.
"Constant vigilance, Professor," He said. "You're missing the climax."
Dursley's fury seemed to have reached the boiling point. He had sent Potter-the-child tumbling to the floor once more and was now yanking him up with uncaring violence, whirling him around against the wall of the corridor.
And with an ugly snap, Potter's left wrist broke. The boy didn't scream, and no tears formed in his huge eyes. A small whimper escaped his lips, but then they thinned, and Snape could see that the child had bitten on his lips hard, to stop himself from crying out.
Wordlessly, the child-Potter stared at his uncle, his eyes wide and confused and full of pain. Supporting his left arm with his right hand, he stretched the bruised hand out to Dursley, a silent gesture of desperate pleading.
"Serves you right, you freak," Vernon Dursley bellowed and forcefully pushed the broken limb away, knocking Potter off his feet in the process.
This time, Potter did cry out, and the painful sound earned him a kick in the ribs.
"Look up," Dursley demanded roughly, and slowly, the boy raised his eyes towards the adult towering in front of him.
Snape saw the utter disbelief in those green eyes, that a grown-up, someone belonging to his family, had hurt him this way.
"Just so you know, boy," Vernon growled, and it was a miracle to Snape that the man could even speak in the presence of these painful, terribly old eyes. "Never dare to hurt Dudley again, or you will receive much more. You are not worth the dirt under our Dudley's feet, and if I ever, ever catch you at something like that again, you will be thrown out of the house without a second thought."
Still, Potter didn't make a sound or move. Still, his green eyes were fixed on his uncle's face in the mute plea for an explanation.
"Now get out of my sight, boy!" Vernon shouted.
In that very moment, something in those eyes broke.
Potter-the-child lowered his head, and his body seemed to go limp. He didn't react as Dursley once more grabbed him by the collar and hoisted him up, dragging him through the corridor towards the built in cupboard Potter had opened before.
Dursley now yanked the cupboard door open, shoved the child through and closed the door again, locking it without a single word. Then, he disappeared back into the kitchen, where they could soon hear him soothing and consoling the still crying Dudley.
Silence reigned supreme.
Snape's eyes searched and found the older Potter, who seemed totally unmoved by the scene that had unfolded in front of them. He was once again moving along the wall, examining the photos and smiling to himself that mysterious, infuriating smile.
"Why did he throw you into that cupboard, Potter?" Snape finally demanded to know, only now noticing how his fists had tightened around the railway of the staircase, when he realized that Potter wouldn't explain on his own account. "Was that a punishment of some kind?"
"Not at all, Professor," Potter answered mildly and turned around to him, that serene smile still residing on his face. "I lived in there."
"You… what?"
"I lived in there. Until my eleventh birthday. Then I was given Dudley's second bedroom. It was high time, for I was already growing too big for the cupboard at that time."
"They let you live in a cupboard and broke your bones without a second thought, preferring that fat boy over you," Snape summarized in a voice of stone.
Potter just cocked an eyebrow in question, as if he couldn't see the point of Snape's words at all. "Yes," He simply agreed and turned back to the photos.
"They considered you a burden to them, and nothing more."
"Quite so, Professor."
"But Albus must have known about this," Snape protested, trying to ignore the growing necessity to re-think his beliefs about Potter´s life. „There´s no way no one would have noticed broken bones and black eyes when you came to school."
„Oh, but it wasn´t always like this Professor," Potter commented in a tone fit to discuss the giant wars. „Normally, they took good care not to leave anything visible. And when Dudley smashed me into a wall – well, boys play, and they get overenthusiastic from time to time. And most times, they simply ignored me. You will see some of that soon, I believe."
Silently, Snape glared at him in irritated confusion until the mists of the pensieve engulfed them once more.
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