A/N

Rejoice, dear readers! I must admit that I was absolutely overwhelmed by your response to this story, and the only way I could handle it was by writing this chapter much earlier than I had planned.

So this is a "thank you" to everybody who sent me a review and encouraged me, and especially to Aspen in the Sunlight, who recommended in her livejournal (You have no idea just how much that flattered me!)

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The Darkness of the Cupboard

When the mists cleared again, they found themselves sitting in complete darkness.

"Do I even want to know what is going on here, Potter?" Snape asked, trying to find back to his old, sarcastic tone.

He was still seriously ruffled, and the anger he felt towards Dursley surprised even himself. Despite all the rumours that had echoed through Hogwarts' corridors over the years, Snape didn't enjoy torturing children, though with Potter, it had come quite close.

"That depends on how much you hate me, Professor," Potter answered from the darkness to the left. "Besides, I don't really know what is going on at the moment, either."

Snape snorted in frustration. Having to watch an outbreak of violence like that made him feel itchy and reminded him of his Death Eater days, when the necessity of keeping his cover had rendered him silent and helpless. And to have that sphinx Potter besides him, who seemed to consider this all some sort of twisted joke…

"Come now, Potter, there can't be that many extreme experiences in your life connected to darkness."

Snape could hear the answering smile, and he would have sworn in that moment that he saw Potter's white teeth shining in the darkness. "You would be surprised," The brat answered, leaving his former Professor to curse him in silence.

That silence however was not as quiet as Snape had thought before. A strange, rhythmic sound filled the darkness, and it took him a moment to realize that this wheezing, panting sound was someone's breathing. Not Potter's, who was still sitting mutely by his side, probably reminiscencing about his wonderful childhood.

It was a horrible sound, barely human, more likely produced by an animal of some sort, and Snape took out his wand quickly.

"Lumos," He whispered, convinced that seeing the source of the breathing was better than listening to it in the darkness. But he had been wrong.

The blue-white light that spread from his wand's tip illuminated an impossibly small room, filled with boxes and dusty blankets except for a small, cramped space where a tiny boy lay curled together, wide open eyes staring into the darkness, panting in fear.

"Ah, now I know! We're inside the cupboard," The older Potter said. "I believe small spaces are enlarged magically when you visit them in a pensieve?" He didn't wait for Snape to answer, but leaned forward to get a good view of his counterpart's face and murmured, "Yes. Though it's strange to see it from this perspective…"

Snape didn't think that "strange" was the adequate word for what he was witnessing. "Horrible" for example seemed much more fitting to him.

"What exactly is going on here, Potter," He demanded, rather proud that his voice was nothing but his usual, cold sneer.

"It's Christmas, Professor," Potter explained, sounding rather like a fairy tale narrator than the older counterpart of this terrified, skinny boy.

"Or rather it was Christmas five days ago, when the Dursleys left me in my cupboard with only a bottle of water, five old biscuits and a bucket, and drove off to visit aunt Marge, not telling me when they would return. You see, Mrs Figg was in hospital and rather than cancel their holiday, they decided to put me someplace safe."

"You've been in here for five days?"

"Yes," No anger, no fear, no suffering in this voice.

Snape was nonplussed. He remembered the flimsy little cupboard door from just a moment ago, though, judging from the younger Potter's appearance, half a year had gone by in the child's life, and the thin material didn't deserve the name wood. Was there some masochistic edge to all this? "Why didn't you leave the cupboard?"

Potter just stared at him as if he had proposed to go dancing with a Hippogriff.

"The door is locked," He answered, expressionless.

"Oh, don't be daft, Potter! I've seen that door from the outside during your last memory. Even a six year old could kick it open!"

Astonishment clouded Harry's eyes for a moment, until it was replaced by understanding and he grinned rather sheepishly. "I'm sorry Professor, you're right of course," He admitted ruefully. "I forgot that the new door and the additional locks were only installed after the last memory. The door is now fairly heavy, and impossible to open by a child from inside."

Snape stared at him in consternation. "They replaced the door?" He asked.

Potter just nodded and returned his attention to his younger self curled up besides them. "Some strange things happened around me. People unknown to us greeted us in the streets, something happened I had dearly wished for. Of course I didn't understand the meaning of all that, but the Dursleys did, and it got them nervous."

"So they locked you into a prison?"

Potter snorted. "You should have seen my room when I returned from Hogwarts first. There were bars on the window," He shrugged. "But well, at least I had a window. Nothing to complain about, really."

"Right," Snape didn't sound convinced, and he wasn't. Whatever had happened to Potter, his saintly attitude drove him mad. Even Albus' blind optimism made him aggressive sometimes, and this calm acceptance of all and everything was much worse.

But it's not my job to judge his life, he reminded himself, I don't have to cure his mind, I only have to heal his soul and then I can go home, never to be bothered by Potter again.

This thought gave him the inner strength not to strangle Saint Potter sitting besides him.

"So what is going to happen?" He asked instead, his eyes fixed on the terrified little creature that barely looked human anymore.

"My first real bit of accidental magic," Potter answered, his eyes shining in the dark. "Actually, I'm quite surprised this memory showed up at all – it was such a great feeling…"

"Well, you're not looking so great now," Snape commented with another look over to the small boy in the nest of blankets.

As he watched, Potter-the-child seemed to reach a conclusion. He forced himself upwards, swaying slightly on his knees, and again, Snape noticed with a start how terribly thin the boy was, his hands spidery, his shoulders and arms bony like some Halloween illustration.

His eyes were half closed, but even in the blue-white light of Snape's wand they looked deadened, like they eyes of someone who had seen too much already. And had given up.

"In fact I'd say you look barely human anymore."

But Potter just shrugged. "I've had worse," He stated, completely devoid of feeling as he watched his younger self half crawl, half drag himself towards the cupboard door, whimpering sounds escaping his clenched lips.

Something inside the Potions Master snapped. Although it was an altogether irrational thought (and something Snape would never have admitted to openly), to his mind, this child deserved some compassion, some acceptance of what it went through. A suffering child couldn't be shrugged away, not even by his older self, and suddenly he wished the younger Potter would return. Whining and complaining and straining for his nerves he had been, without doubt, but at least he had been human, not like this bunch of wisdoms and spiritual calmness by his side.

"I've had quite enough of this attitude, Potter," He snarled. "You don't have to proof to me how brave and calm and mellowed you are every single minute. This is child abuse, and it is simply obscene to take it so lightly. Clearly, you are even more of a harebrained simpleton than I thought previously.

Suddenly, for the fist time since they had reached Potter's house, the man cast a spell, a simple Lumos. Wandless, Snape couldn't help noticing, and it irritated him to no end. The magical light – slightly warmer than the one Snape's wand produced, illuminated Potter's astonished and slightly worried face.

"But what do you want me to do?" He asked, confusion evident in his voice. "Do you want me to scream and rage about how life isn't fair like I did when I an adolescent idiot? Life isn't fair, we both know that it is anything but. Why should I waste our time and energy with fighting against things that have happened? What's done is done."

"Stop treating these things as if they were the most normal thing in the world, Potter," Snape barked, only to be answered with another shrug.

"But to me they are," the younger man just said, producing in Snape the acute wish to strangle his neck. "Isn't that how we deal with our lives? Accept the things fate dealt us, develop ways to cope and move on. I mean, look at yourself, Professor."

"I have never been a walking book of calm, Potter," Snape growled

"No, but you're biting people's heads off whenever your stress reaches a certain level. We all survive in our very own way, Professor."

Snape opened his mouth to utter another caustic remark, then snapped it shut again. The hell he was going to proof Potter's mad psychology. If the man believed in his own twisted way of life, who was he to stop it?

"Besides," Potter added after a moment of profound silence. "Shouldn't you be glad about it, Professor? I mean, we have little time as it is, and with me digesting my whole traumatic childhood or something like that, we wouldn't get to anything. Plus I can't imagine you'd like me to sob your robes wet over something that has no consequence whatsoever for our task."

Snape took one sharp, angry breath, then snapped his mouth shut again. He hated it when other people were right, and the idea of a Potter being right he hated even more. Instead of continuing this fruitless discussion, he concentrated once more on the boy, who had by now nearly reached the cupboard door.

He watched as the boy raised one trembling fist and hesitatingly, his eyes wide open with fear, knocked against the solid wood of the door. Snape had seen enough of the Dursleys already to know how much courage this simple action must cost the boy, for surely, the punishment for disturbing them in their domestic harmony would have to be severe.

No wonder it had taken the boy five days to become desperate enough for this simple act, but of course it was useless, for even as the knocking sounded muffled in the darkness of the cupboard, the boy buried his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking.

It took Snape a moment to realize that Potter-the-child was crying, being used to the shrill or loud wails of children who demanded consolation. This, however, was no exaggerated suffering designed to draw attention. Potter knew that no one would come to him, that there was no one who would hear his pain or care about it.

This crying was meant to be secret, and when the boy raised his head again, there were no tears wetting his face, whether because of Potter severe state of malnutrition and dehydration, or because Potter had stopped crying a long time ago Snape didn't know, but still the dry heaving sobs tore at Snape's heart.

He didn't turn around to Potter-the-man, for he wasn't keen on seeing his emotionless, disinterested face in this moment. Instead, he watched as the boy rocked himself in sorrow and despair for what seemed like an eternity.

Then, he visibly pulled himself together and spoke for the first time since the memory had begun. His voice was hoarse and raspy, but clearly understandable.

"No use," He whispered. "They are away. How stupid of me. But what to do? What to do?"

Silence followed that half-whispered question. Snape thought he heard Potter-the-man murmur something about his rather limited capability of reasoning, but he preferred to ignore it and concentrated on the boy instead, who was now speaking to the door as if it could hear him, as if it could somehow transport his words to the unforgiving family far away.

"Why did you leave me in here," He cried. "Let me out! Let me out!"

Anger rose in him, and again he raised his fist, but now his knocking was stronger and defiant.

"They left me here to die," He suddenly whispered in a voice of cold conviction. "They want me gone and think this is the best way. But you won't finish me! I will not die as easily as my parents!"

"They told me my parents were unemployed and alcoholics. Until Hagrid came, I thought they had died in a car crash, my father too drunk to drive the car," Potter explained calmly.

Snape's eyes lingered on the flushed, angry face of the little boy, but still he nearly jumped when the boy suddenly pressed his flat palm against the wood of the cupboard door.

"Open," He said, in the same cold and determined voice his older self had used in the headmaster's office when he had commanded Hogwarts itself to bend to his will and had succeeded.

And like the last time Snape had seen him do it, magic triumphed over matter.

Snape had expected a blast of some sort, an explosion like it happened so often in wizarding households when children lost the grip on their emotions, but nothing of that sort occurred.

Instead, with a simple click, the lock of the cupboard gave way and the door opened.

From hindsight, it was difficult to say who was more startled, Potter-the-child, who was staring in amazement at the door that swung open silently, or Snape, who alternated his stare between the two Potters.

The fact of accidental magic itself didn't surprise him, though Potter was, indeed, quite young for it to happen, but what absolutely astonished him was the disciplined kind of magic that he had just witnessed.

Normally, accidental magic contained a great deal of blasting, exploding and other catastrophes. This magic however had been straight to the point. Potter had wanted out, and instead of blasting the door open, he had simply unlocked it. Snape had never seen accidental magic so controlled or coordinated before.

"Quite remarkable, isn't it," Potter said in a voice full of pride, and the only thing Snape could do was nod in silence as he watched Potter the child crawl out of the cupboard, joy and fear battle on his face.

"Let's follow him. The thing isn't over yet if I remember correctly," Potter said and crawled out behind his younger self, his movements graceful and swift, as if he hadn't just spent half an hour crouching on the floor of a tiny cupboard.

For the next half hour, they watched the boy tip-toe through the house as if it belonged to a strange family he had never met. He had climbed on a chair to reach for the tap and still his thirst, then rummaged the storage room for a packet of dry biscuits. Snape noticed how carefully and slowly the boy proceeded, and a sinking feeling in his stomach told him that Potter had, indeed, quite some expertise on the field of starving.

It happened just as the boy had relaxed enough to return into the corridor. He was obviously planning to return to his cupboard the moment he had re-stocked his provisions, and was cleaning it quite efficiently.

He was in the bathroom, emptying and cleaning the stinking bucket, Snape still watching him intently and Potter once again at his favourite place on the staircase, when they heard a car pull into the driveway.

The boy froze. Snape had seen him frightened before, but it was nothing compared to the absolute panic that filled his green eyes now. Still, he lost nothing of his efficiency. In bare seconds he had cleaned the bathroom of his traces and was racing back towards the cupboard, bucket in hand, clearly intending to lock himself in again before the Dursleys entered the house.

He very nearly made it.

"Boy!" Vernon Dursley shouted, his face even redder and uglier than in the last memory, and grabbed the child that was trying to dive into his cupboard.

"What have you done? How have you opened that door, you little freak?"

"It just opened, Uncle Vernon," Potter gasped. "I was afraid! I thought you had forgotten me!"

"I would just love to forget all about you, boy," Vernon growled, shaking the child wildly. "But you can't even behave for a week! Instead of thanking us for our care and graciousness, you destroy our property and sneak all over the house! But I'll teach you a lesson, boy. This time you'll understand the necessity to behave!"

His hand still gripping the child's arm like a vice, Dursley turned back to the open front door and his family that waited outside, not sure whether to enter.

"Take Dudley for a walk, Petunia," Dursley told his wife. "There's some cleaning up to do."

Petunia Dursley just nodded and turned to leave, but with a strength Snape would never have expected inside that thin body, Potter tore himself away from his uncle.

"Aunt Petunia, no!" He screamed in anguish. "Please don't leave me! I'll be good! It wasn't my fault!"

But all she sent her nephew before the front door closed between them was a long look, full of hatred and disgust, and Potter slumped in defeat.

"Not your fault?" Vernon asked now, slowly descending on the meagre boy, his eyes glittering with malice. "Whose fault was it then, freak. My fault? Do you want to blame me for your abnormality? Look at you! No wonder nobody loves you! I'll show you whose fault all this is!"

What followed was one of the most severe beatings Snape had ever witnessed.

Finally, when the boy had even given up defeating himself, his hands flailing helplessly in the rhythm of his uncle's cruelty, Dursley hoisted him up and threw him back into the cupboard, the hated prison he had fought so desperately to escape.

"Rot in there, boy!" Vernon shouted through the air flap. "If I have any say, you will spend the rest of your life inside that cupboard!"

The last thing Snape heard and saw before the mists took him away from this place of horror were the panting of a boy in mortal terror and the dry, unmoved eyes of a young man who looked upon his past without pity or sorrow, as if it belonged to someone else.

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"They locked you in there again?" Snape asked, earning nothing but an inattentive nod from Potter.

Since they had left the pensieve after watching the two memories, Snape had been monosyllabic at best, his mind still pondering over the things he had seen and learned over the last hours. Potter had proposed lunch, and Snape had agreed off-handedly. Only when he noticed the other man pulling out pans and pots did he realize that Potter really intended to cook for him.

After the scenes he had witnessed this morning it made him feel somewhat uneasy.

"Don't worry," Potter said as if he had read his thoughts, though Snape's mental shields were firmly in place and Potter hadn't even turned towards him. "I actually love to cook. It's one of the good things the Dursleys taught me. Cooking, minding the house – Hogwarts is rather lacking in that respect."

And again the brat was defending the very people who had tortured him as a child. Snape wondered what exactly was wrong with the him.

It was like that muggle children book he had read a long time ago, the one where a toad – or was it a crocodile? – led a girl through a hole into a whole different world, inhabited by mad hatters, talking caterpillars and raving queens, and in which all the concepts of normalcy were turned upside down in a heartbeat.

It was only a question of time until Snape himself would go mad or strangle the boy with frustration.

"Potter," He tried again. "They locked you into a cupboard for five days. When you broke out of it, they beat you up brutally and locked you in there again."

"Yes," Obviously unchallenged by the whole conversation, Potter had turned back to the risotto he was preparing.

"For how long."

"Three weeks, but I got food and was allowed to go to the bathroom twice a day, so it wasn't that bad," Potter answered, still concentrating on the rice, and then, after a short break, added:

"Actually, I started liking that cupboard somewhere along the way. It was dark and a bit stuffy, but it was safe. No one ever hurt me in there, or wanted me to be someone I wasn't. When it all got too much, later, in Hogwarts, I used to close my eyes and imagine I was back in my cupboard, and I would feel better immediately."

"Well, if you had applied that cupboard image to your Occluding skills, you might have learned something instead of just wallowing in self pity. But after all my years at Hogwarts, I have yet to experience a student that translates experience into useful action," Snape sneered, only belatedly noticing how harsh his words had sounded.

Why was it that Potters were always bringing out the worst in him, he wondered. With anybody else, he probably would have apologized for this tactless remark, but with Potter, it was out of the question. See how he reacts, he thought angrily. Perhaps it finally cracks his shell of serenity.

"You know, that's the thing I always liked you for, Professor," Potter commented, seemingly out of nowhere. "At least, after I stopped hating you for it," He conceded.

Snape expected him to continue, but he boy remained silent.

"What," He finally asked, sighing in resignation. "For my eloquence in the field of insults?"

Potter chuckled and Snape had to suppress a growl, but at least he answered the question.

"No. For your absolute truthfulness concerning me. You didn't think much of me, in fact, your opinion couldn't have been worse. But at least you never considered me as someone special, as a hero you looked up to, or as someone you expected to save the wizarding world. All that sudden attention and admiration drove me crazy, when all I wanted to be was, for once, normal."

"Don't give me that sentimental nonsense, Potter," Snape barked. "I know you loved the attention, or you would have stayed away from it. Your father did, too, and that mutt, Black."

To his surprise, Potter started laughing, an open, full laugh that was filled with honest amusement.

"You see, that's what I meant. Always finding the sore point, always hammering it in. If it had been just you teaching me, without all the fuss and the emotions and people that believed I had to enjoy my childhood, I might have learned enough to survive, and to stop all those people from dying."

For a moment, his voice changed, his face suddenly taking on the haggard look of an old man who had seen and done too much. But then he sighed, and it was as if the strange transformation had never happened.

"But it's no use thinking about the past or worrying about spilt milk," He added lightly, the tranquil smile in place as if it had never disappeared.

"You're absolutely mad, Potter."

"I know Professor," The young man answered happily. "But that's a main qualification for defending the world against dark wizards, isn't it?"

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Next chapter will introduce Shadow to this story, plus yet another fit and some shocking revelations about Harry's past...