Injuries that Heal - chapter 1
Rap-rap. Harry looked up from his bed in surprise. The clock on the table next to him showed midnight.
‘Who’s there?’ he called. The door opened just a crack, but no one answered.
‘Hello?’ called Harry, slightly alarmed, ‘Who is it?’
Getting no answer, he rose to his feet, walked to the door and pulled it open himself. Looking around, he saw no one. He was just about to the close the door again when his foot caught on something on the ground. He looked down cautiously and spotted a huddled black mass upon the doorstep. A closer look told him that it was a bundle of black robes. Robes? Robes that moved by themselves…? Robes that knocked on doors? They might be Charmed, but….
Harry knelt down beside the bundle and was in for a startling shock. He was face-to-face with his Potions master, Severus Snape. He was spattered with blood all over, and his face was chalk-white with intense pain. He could hardly open his eyes properly.
‘Professor!’ gasped Harry, ‘What - how the-?’
‘Potter,’ the injured man managed to whisper tiredly, as one thin, sallow, bloody hand clutched the front of Harry’s robes, ‘They - they know. I was - discovered.’
‘Discovered?’ repeated Harry, nonplussed, ‘In what? - Never mind that now; have some rest.’
He pulled the man into the house as gently and carefully as he could, because Snape could not move by himself any more. ‘I wish I could Mobilicorpus you to my bed, Professor; but as I’m not supposed to use magic outside the school, I can’t.’
At this, Snape pulled out his own wand and using the last of his remaining energy, said ‘Mobilicorpus!’ feebly, pointing the wand at himself. His limp body floated up into the air and slowly drifted towards Harry’s bed.
When the bed was just half a metre from his body, Snape could magically hold on no more, and he collapsed mid-air. Harry saw this, and giving Snape no time to fall, he rushed to the latter, dragging him into bed, or rather, dragging the bed towards him. Snape winced as he fell on the hard mattress, his head lolling helplessly. Harry pulled Snape into a proper position, lifting his hands and placing them on pillows, and gathered his head in his lap. Snape let out a stifled moan of pain and then fainted. Harry instantly replaced his lap with his own pillow, ignoring the way it became splotched with red. He ran to the bathroom, filled a vessel with water and placed it upon the empty grate. Running back to Snape quickly, he grabbed some cloths and a jug of water on the way, wet the cloths in the water and used them to clean Snape’s wounds. He patiently removed the dirt and pus from the injured places on Snape’s body. He then looked around for something to stem the blood-flow with. Seeing nothing, he delved into his trunk and pulled out his old clothes, and then wrapped them tightly around the wounds. After a few minutes, the blood-flow stopped.
Did tincture-iodine work on wizard wounds? Thought Harry. Aunt Petunia had a bottle of that downstairs. But these wounds were inflicted upon the body by curses, not by physical means, so they shouldn’t go by physical means either. Curing Snape magically was out of the question. Harry, firstly, was not allowed to practise magic out of Hogwarts, and anyway, he didn’t know any healing spells. What was he to do?
He gazed down at the unconscious man sadly. How much pain would he have had to endure, had he been conscious! His eyes went towards the vessel on the grate. Food! But how was he to make any? He opened his door cautiously, listening. He heard the faint noise of his uncle’s snores. His aunt was away in her friend Kline’s house, and Dudley was at Piers Polkiss’s. So it was safe. He crept downstairs lightly, treading on the carpet silently, and then opened the fridge. He grabbed two plates of bacon, egg and toast, sped to the kitchen, made a cup of coffee, a glass of lemonade, a glass of water and a bowl of mustard-gram soup. How he managed to reach upstairs with all these things he never knew; all he knew and cared was that there lay a man upstairs who was injured, hungry and weak.
Opening the door quietly, Harry tiptoed in and found Snape still unconscious on the bed. Setting the food down on the bedside-table, he sat down carefully next to the man, once more gathering the black head in his lap. Stroking the black locks gently, he drew the head closer to his chest. Snape sighed in his sleep.
Realising that Snape would be in a very bad condition if he didn’t eat something now, he ran his hands over the injured shoulders, and whispered, ‘Professor, Professor….’
Snape didn’t stir at first. Mumbling slightly in his sleep, he woke to find himself in his student’s arms.
‘Potter?’ he croaked.
‘Hush - here, Professor - have this,’ and Harry helped the man sit up, propped him up on pillows and placed the food-tray in his lap. Snape gazed at the food, then back at Harry tiredly.
‘Can’t eat by yourself? Never mind,’ said Harry. Fastening a towel around Snape’s shoulders, he slipped a hand around Snape’s neck to hold his head in place. With his other hand, he picked up a forkful of egg and fed it to Snape. Then he slowly finished feeding Snape the whole food, and only the mustard-gram soup remained.
‘Potter, no more!’ moaned Snape, softly, ‘I can’t eat more…’
‘Ssh, sir - this is good for the body - only some soup - it’ll go in fast - come on, have some - that’s right,’ he said, lifting the bowl-rim to Snape’s lips. Snape sipped a little at first, reluctant and unsure, then a bit more, and then drank deeply. It was easy to see that he was enjoying the soup. Finishing the bowl, he gazed at Harry, who at once unfastened the towel and wiped Snape’s face with it.
‘Potter,’ Snape started, ‘I was caught in my job - spying for the Side of the Light. That’s - that’s why I - came to - came to - you -’
It was true. The Dark Lord had been absolutely furious. So had Bellatrix, and his other faithful Death Eaters. They had tried every hex and curse they knew on him, and just when they were beginning to say the killing curse - ‘Av-’ he had grabbed hold of a Portkey and left them swearing irately behind him. Another moment’s delay would have cost him his life.
Snape had Portkeyed to his quarters at Hogwarts first, but he didn’t want to face Dumbledore any more. He had failed in his job; the only reason that he had been given a place in the castle, and so he had chosen to Apparate, instead, to the place where the person for whose protection he had been spying all these years, lived. If the boy kept him, he’d live; if he didn’t, he’d kill himself. That was easy. That was exactly the thing he had wanted to do fifteen years ago, and Dumbledore had stopped him. But Snape knew he had only done that because Snape would be of use to the Order, and Dumbledore knew it; he was of no use any more, and so he had quit; also on the knowledge that Dumbledore wanted Potter eventually killed - Lily’s sacrifice was in vain - all Snape’s spying was useless. Dumbledore had used him and betrayed Potter. So he had resigned - temporarily from all duties and permanently from pending work. His first feeling had been of deep irritation and betrayal, but then slowly, as he thought it over: he felt different than he had felt in years; it was a sense of freedom: a feeling he had rarely had; a sense of exhilaration. He was free, free, free! He wasn’t the Dark Lord’s or Dumbledore’s servant anymore; he was Harry Potter’s. He was in control of his life now; or rather: Potter was. Potter would never want anyone killed, for all Snape knew, but even if he did, Snape was beyond the point of caring now.
Harry drew the bedclothes across Snape’s thin shoulders, gently pushing him back down onto the pillows. Then he took the glass of water and placed the rim at Snape’s lips.
‘Potter,’ he whispered, ‘Why - why are you being so - why are you doing all this for - for me?’ ‘Because you’re injured, Professor,’ said Harry, gently, ‘Now lie down and sleep.’
‘But - I treated you badly - and - and hated you, and -’
‘But I didn’t hate you,’ said Harry, softly, gazing intently into the obsidian eyes, ‘And you don’t hate me either. You just think you do. You see, you hated my father - and you think I’m like him, and so you hate what you think I am.’
Snape’s eyes were wide, his breathing ragged. He seemed unable to look away from the earnest emerald eyes.
Leaning forwards suddenly, he grabbed the boy with his hands and pulled the raven head to his chest. Delighted, Harry buried his face in the black folds. Then he pulled away reluctantly, saying softly, ‘Oughtn’t I to get you some clothes? You’ve ruined the ones you have on.’
‘You can give me any old robe you have,’ replied Snape.
Harry hurried to his trunk, pulled out a set of his old school-robes and handed them to Snape. With two flicks of his wand, Snape had changed into them faster than Harry could blink.
‘Well, now, I think - there is nothing more to be done, and you could go to sleep, child,’ said Snape, his voice gentler than Harry had ever heard.
But from downstairs came a shout of ‘BOY!’ and Harry froze. ‘They’re home!’ muttered Harry, dazedly, running to the door. ‘Who -?’ began Snape, but he stopped when he saw Harry placing a finger on his lips to tell him to be quiet. Pulling the door open, he turned to Severus once again and said in a great hurry, ‘Professor - they - my aunt and uncle, you know - don’t know you’re here. Neither does my cousin. They - er - don’t like people of our lot. They hate me because I’m one of you. The magical people, you know. I’d be back within a few hours - sorry I can’t tell you when exactly, especially with nothing to amuse you. They - er - make sure I don’t waste their money - on food and clothes and stuff, you know, though all clothes I have are Dudley’s old hand-me-downs. I can’t, of course give them money to pay for this, for I have no Muggle money. So they make me-’
‘BOY! Get down here this minute!’
‘-work instead,’ finished Harry, rushing out of the door, ‘and please don’t exert yourself - you need rest - don’t worry ’bout me, I’ll be fine - the water’s in the jug, the bacon’s in the casserole there - see? The only books here are my old school-books - and some Quidditch ones - but you probably won’t like them. There’s some parchment on the table, if you wish to write. Make as less noise as possible - sorry if I’m being rude, but you don’t know my relatives - I do! In this state, you must not be caught. Goodbye for now - try to get some sleep - let me see what these people want now...’
And he dashed downstairs at full speed, pulling the door from outside in his haste, making it swing shut with a loud bang. Snape heard an irate voice of a man exclaim: ‘Why the devil are you banging my door, boy? You’ll pay if anything happens to them.’
They don’t exactly sound like pleasant people, thought Snape, as he lay back in the bed, pulling an old copy of the Daily Prophet from the bedside-cabinet. But, after all - Petunia Evans’s husband can’t exactly be politeness and pleasantness personified, can he? he thought, wryly.
He didn’t realise when the paper slipped from his loosened grip and fell limply to his side. When Harry returned, he saw his Potions teacher sleeping on his bed, wearing his robes, head on his pillow. Harry smiled. He had never thought that the man could look so vulnerable, so utterly peaceful, and one word that he had never thought he could attribute to Snape - innocent. Perhaps things could change after all - perhaps all hope of winning Snape’s liking was not lost yet.
He crossed over to the bed; lay down beside his Professor, curling into a small ball and soon fell asleep.
When Snape woke, he found a tousled black head near his chest, tucked deep into his robes.
He gazed at the sleeping child: how innocent Harry looked! James Potter’s boy could never have looked innocent. Har-wait a moment - since when did he start calling the boy Harry?
He ruffled the black locks lovingly. In his sleep, Harry looked so young, small, vulnerable and childlike. The longing for affection was clear on the child’s face even when he slept. Some pain; some internal despair had rendered Harry sad, even in sleep. He scooped the bundle up in his arms, pulled himself off the bed and wandlessly conjured a great rocking chair. Then he settled down in it, rocking the child in his arms gently.
‘Who’s there?’ he called. The door opened just a crack, but no one answered.
‘Hello?’ called Harry, slightly alarmed, ‘Who is it?’
Getting no answer, he rose to his feet, walked to the door and pulled it open himself. Looking around, he saw no one. He was just about to the close the door again when his foot caught on something on the ground. He looked down cautiously and spotted a huddled black mass upon the doorstep. A closer look told him that it was a bundle of black robes. Robes? Robes that moved by themselves…? Robes that knocked on doors? They might be Charmed, but….
Harry knelt down beside the bundle and was in for a startling shock. He was face-to-face with his Potions master, Severus Snape. He was spattered with blood all over, and his face was chalk-white with intense pain. He could hardly open his eyes properly.
‘Professor!’ gasped Harry, ‘What - how the-?’
‘Potter,’ the injured man managed to whisper tiredly, as one thin, sallow, bloody hand clutched the front of Harry’s robes, ‘They - they know. I was - discovered.’
‘Discovered?’ repeated Harry, nonplussed, ‘In what? - Never mind that now; have some rest.’
He pulled the man into the house as gently and carefully as he could, because Snape could not move by himself any more. ‘I wish I could Mobilicorpus you to my bed, Professor; but as I’m not supposed to use magic outside the school, I can’t.’
At this, Snape pulled out his own wand and using the last of his remaining energy, said ‘Mobilicorpus!’ feebly, pointing the wand at himself. His limp body floated up into the air and slowly drifted towards Harry’s bed.
When the bed was just half a metre from his body, Snape could magically hold on no more, and he collapsed mid-air. Harry saw this, and giving Snape no time to fall, he rushed to the latter, dragging him into bed, or rather, dragging the bed towards him. Snape winced as he fell on the hard mattress, his head lolling helplessly. Harry pulled Snape into a proper position, lifting his hands and placing them on pillows, and gathered his head in his lap. Snape let out a stifled moan of pain and then fainted. Harry instantly replaced his lap with his own pillow, ignoring the way it became splotched with red. He ran to the bathroom, filled a vessel with water and placed it upon the empty grate. Running back to Snape quickly, he grabbed some cloths and a jug of water on the way, wet the cloths in the water and used them to clean Snape’s wounds. He patiently removed the dirt and pus from the injured places on Snape’s body. He then looked around for something to stem the blood-flow with. Seeing nothing, he delved into his trunk and pulled out his old clothes, and then wrapped them tightly around the wounds. After a few minutes, the blood-flow stopped.
Did tincture-iodine work on wizard wounds? Thought Harry. Aunt Petunia had a bottle of that downstairs. But these wounds were inflicted upon the body by curses, not by physical means, so they shouldn’t go by physical means either. Curing Snape magically was out of the question. Harry, firstly, was not allowed to practise magic out of Hogwarts, and anyway, he didn’t know any healing spells. What was he to do?
He gazed down at the unconscious man sadly. How much pain would he have had to endure, had he been conscious! His eyes went towards the vessel on the grate. Food! But how was he to make any? He opened his door cautiously, listening. He heard the faint noise of his uncle’s snores. His aunt was away in her friend Kline’s house, and Dudley was at Piers Polkiss’s. So it was safe. He crept downstairs lightly, treading on the carpet silently, and then opened the fridge. He grabbed two plates of bacon, egg and toast, sped to the kitchen, made a cup of coffee, a glass of lemonade, a glass of water and a bowl of mustard-gram soup. How he managed to reach upstairs with all these things he never knew; all he knew and cared was that there lay a man upstairs who was injured, hungry and weak.
Opening the door quietly, Harry tiptoed in and found Snape still unconscious on the bed. Setting the food down on the bedside-table, he sat down carefully next to the man, once more gathering the black head in his lap. Stroking the black locks gently, he drew the head closer to his chest. Snape sighed in his sleep.
Realising that Snape would be in a very bad condition if he didn’t eat something now, he ran his hands over the injured shoulders, and whispered, ‘Professor, Professor….’
Snape didn’t stir at first. Mumbling slightly in his sleep, he woke to find himself in his student’s arms.
‘Potter?’ he croaked.
‘Hush - here, Professor - have this,’ and Harry helped the man sit up, propped him up on pillows and placed the food-tray in his lap. Snape gazed at the food, then back at Harry tiredly.
‘Can’t eat by yourself? Never mind,’ said Harry. Fastening a towel around Snape’s shoulders, he slipped a hand around Snape’s neck to hold his head in place. With his other hand, he picked up a forkful of egg and fed it to Snape. Then he slowly finished feeding Snape the whole food, and only the mustard-gram soup remained.
‘Potter, no more!’ moaned Snape, softly, ‘I can’t eat more…’
‘Ssh, sir - this is good for the body - only some soup - it’ll go in fast - come on, have some - that’s right,’ he said, lifting the bowl-rim to Snape’s lips. Snape sipped a little at first, reluctant and unsure, then a bit more, and then drank deeply. It was easy to see that he was enjoying the soup. Finishing the bowl, he gazed at Harry, who at once unfastened the towel and wiped Snape’s face with it.
‘Potter,’ Snape started, ‘I was caught in my job - spying for the Side of the Light. That’s - that’s why I - came to - came to - you -’
It was true. The Dark Lord had been absolutely furious. So had Bellatrix, and his other faithful Death Eaters. They had tried every hex and curse they knew on him, and just when they were beginning to say the killing curse - ‘Av-’ he had grabbed hold of a Portkey and left them swearing irately behind him. Another moment’s delay would have cost him his life.
Snape had Portkeyed to his quarters at Hogwarts first, but he didn’t want to face Dumbledore any more. He had failed in his job; the only reason that he had been given a place in the castle, and so he had chosen to Apparate, instead, to the place where the person for whose protection he had been spying all these years, lived. If the boy kept him, he’d live; if he didn’t, he’d kill himself. That was easy. That was exactly the thing he had wanted to do fifteen years ago, and Dumbledore had stopped him. But Snape knew he had only done that because Snape would be of use to the Order, and Dumbledore knew it; he was of no use any more, and so he had quit; also on the knowledge that Dumbledore wanted Potter eventually killed - Lily’s sacrifice was in vain - all Snape’s spying was useless. Dumbledore had used him and betrayed Potter. So he had resigned - temporarily from all duties and permanently from pending work. His first feeling had been of deep irritation and betrayal, but then slowly, as he thought it over: he felt different than he had felt in years; it was a sense of freedom: a feeling he had rarely had; a sense of exhilaration. He was free, free, free! He wasn’t the Dark Lord’s or Dumbledore’s servant anymore; he was Harry Potter’s. He was in control of his life now; or rather: Potter was. Potter would never want anyone killed, for all Snape knew, but even if he did, Snape was beyond the point of caring now.
Harry drew the bedclothes across Snape’s thin shoulders, gently pushing him back down onto the pillows. Then he took the glass of water and placed the rim at Snape’s lips.
‘Potter,’ he whispered, ‘Why - why are you being so - why are you doing all this for - for me?’ ‘Because you’re injured, Professor,’ said Harry, gently, ‘Now lie down and sleep.’
‘But - I treated you badly - and - and hated you, and -’
‘But I didn’t hate you,’ said Harry, softly, gazing intently into the obsidian eyes, ‘And you don’t hate me either. You just think you do. You see, you hated my father - and you think I’m like him, and so you hate what you think I am.’
Snape’s eyes were wide, his breathing ragged. He seemed unable to look away from the earnest emerald eyes.
Leaning forwards suddenly, he grabbed the boy with his hands and pulled the raven head to his chest. Delighted, Harry buried his face in the black folds. Then he pulled away reluctantly, saying softly, ‘Oughtn’t I to get you some clothes? You’ve ruined the ones you have on.’
‘You can give me any old robe you have,’ replied Snape.
Harry hurried to his trunk, pulled out a set of his old school-robes and handed them to Snape. With two flicks of his wand, Snape had changed into them faster than Harry could blink.
‘Well, now, I think - there is nothing more to be done, and you could go to sleep, child,’ said Snape, his voice gentler than Harry had ever heard.
But from downstairs came a shout of ‘BOY!’ and Harry froze. ‘They’re home!’ muttered Harry, dazedly, running to the door. ‘Who -?’ began Snape, but he stopped when he saw Harry placing a finger on his lips to tell him to be quiet. Pulling the door open, he turned to Severus once again and said in a great hurry, ‘Professor - they - my aunt and uncle, you know - don’t know you’re here. Neither does my cousin. They - er - don’t like people of our lot. They hate me because I’m one of you. The magical people, you know. I’d be back within a few hours - sorry I can’t tell you when exactly, especially with nothing to amuse you. They - er - make sure I don’t waste their money - on food and clothes and stuff, you know, though all clothes I have are Dudley’s old hand-me-downs. I can’t, of course give them money to pay for this, for I have no Muggle money. So they make me-’
‘BOY! Get down here this minute!’
‘-work instead,’ finished Harry, rushing out of the door, ‘and please don’t exert yourself - you need rest - don’t worry ’bout me, I’ll be fine - the water’s in the jug, the bacon’s in the casserole there - see? The only books here are my old school-books - and some Quidditch ones - but you probably won’t like them. There’s some parchment on the table, if you wish to write. Make as less noise as possible - sorry if I’m being rude, but you don’t know my relatives - I do! In this state, you must not be caught. Goodbye for now - try to get some sleep - let me see what these people want now...’
And he dashed downstairs at full speed, pulling the door from outside in his haste, making it swing shut with a loud bang. Snape heard an irate voice of a man exclaim: ‘Why the devil are you banging my door, boy? You’ll pay if anything happens to them.’
They don’t exactly sound like pleasant people, thought Snape, as he lay back in the bed, pulling an old copy of the Daily Prophet from the bedside-cabinet. But, after all - Petunia Evans’s husband can’t exactly be politeness and pleasantness personified, can he? he thought, wryly.
He didn’t realise when the paper slipped from his loosened grip and fell limply to his side. When Harry returned, he saw his Potions teacher sleeping on his bed, wearing his robes, head on his pillow. Harry smiled. He had never thought that the man could look so vulnerable, so utterly peaceful, and one word that he had never thought he could attribute to Snape - innocent. Perhaps things could change after all - perhaps all hope of winning Snape’s liking was not lost yet.
He crossed over to the bed; lay down beside his Professor, curling into a small ball and soon fell asleep.
When Snape woke, he found a tousled black head near his chest, tucked deep into his robes.
He gazed at the sleeping child: how innocent Harry looked! James Potter’s boy could never have looked innocent. Har-wait a moment - since when did he start calling the boy Harry?
He ruffled the black locks lovingly. In his sleep, Harry looked so young, small, vulnerable and childlike. The longing for affection was clear on the child’s face even when he slept. Some pain; some internal despair had rendered Harry sad, even in sleep. He scooped the bundle up in his arms, pulled himself off the bed and wandlessly conjured a great rocking chair. Then he settled down in it, rocking the child in his arms gently.