It didn't take hours for the headmaster to explain all he knew, but it did take a good while, as he interrupted his narrative to answer Harry's frequent questions.

Yes, Number Four Privet Drive had been utterly annihilated on Lucius Malfoy's command. The Ministry of Magic was quite put out that Death Eaters were getting bold enough to strike as fiercely as that, and in broad daylight, and in a crowded Muggle neighbourhood, no less. They'd explained the destruction of the house as a gas explosion, despite the fact that after the windows had blown out, it had quite obviously imploded. And as for the Dark Mark in the sky, they'd used Obliviate on enough Muggles that the rest of them were starting to doubt they'd ever seen it.

Dudley . . . yes, the headmaster knew that Harry's cousin was called Dudley. Professor Snape had mentioned that the two boys were getting on a bit better than in years past. Yes, yes, Dudley was fine, at least physically. He'd been out walking, taking some much-needed exercise his therapist had recommended, when the attack began. He'd seen the Dark Mark hanging over his own house. He'd run home, and just as in Harry's dreams --which the headmaster was well-informed of-- he'd stood screaming on the lawn. No doubt the Death Eaters would have made short work of him had Arabella Figg not rushed over and spirited him away into her own house. Dudley was there, still, and asking to see Harry. No, no, he hadn't been one of the ones Obliviated. The Ministry, in an odd fit of lucidity, had thought it best to check with Harry before taking a step like that. But yes, Dudley was still with Mrs. Figg. He was going to see his therapist every day now, instead of twice a week. The Ministry was paying, though really, the boy was seventeen and should be capable by now of supporting himself.

"Dudley's not really seventeen, not where it counts," Harry had murmured, rolling over slightly and reaching out for the glass he'd been sipping from every few minutes. When the headmaster placed it in his hands, their fingers brushing, Harry flinched, though he didn't mean to. "If you want to talk maturity, he's more like twelve. Maybe thirteen."

Dumbledore hadn't disagreed, though he hadn't dwelt much more on Dudley. Vernon Dursley was dead, he'd said, and Harry had nodded.

As for Harry's own house--as the hospital wing was unwarded, the headmaster didn't call it by its address--Lucius Malfoy hadn't broached the intricate defences at all. Harry had left the house. Hadn't he realised that air vent in the cellar was in an exterior wall? He'd inadvertently entered a crawl space in an adjoining house. A Muggle house, though it was no more; Lucius had demolished it completely to get to Harry so that he could Apparate him away.

As far as Harry was concerned, parts of the story didn't make much sense. "What, Malfoy just happened to be walking past just as I went looking for my snake? And he can see through walls and floors, now? I was in the cellar, for crying out loud!"

"He didn't happen to just be walking past." Dumbledore gave a heavy sigh. "It troubles me to have to tell you this, Harry, even though I know from Professor Snape's reports that you're well aware your uncle meant you harm. But the truth is . . ." Another sigh. "Lucius boasted to Severus that your uncle had led them straight to you."

"I didn't tell Uncle Vernon about Grimmauld Place!" Harry insisted, his voice rough with emotion. "Even if I'd wanted to, which believe me, I never ever would have, it wouldn't have mattered! The Fidelius Charm! I'm not the Secret Keeper!"

"No, no, you're not. But Harry," here the headmaster's voice went very soft. "When you went to the hospital with Professor Snape, you introduced him to your uncle as Remus Lupin, do you recall? After your aunt died, your uncle remembered that. He was angry."

"To say the least," Harry muttered.

"Death Eaters had been snooping around Privet Drive ever since Lucius Malfoy had learnt you were not present at Hogwarts. Your uncle recognised them as wizards at some point, and ascertained that they were not, shall we say, much enamored of you. When they mentioned that you had still not returned to school, your uncle informed them that you were with Remus Lupin; that if they found him, they would find you."

"But so what?" Harry pressed. "Remus stayed in the house with me. They couldn't have found him, either . . . oh, oh no." It came to him in a flash of understanding. "He went out one day to get me ice cream. He went to Diagon Alley, and he didn't Apparate back in, he was trying to avoid magic around me, so he walked in the front door."

Silence. "I can't see you when you nod, Headmaster," Harry felt obligated to point out.

"Yes, of course. At any rate, Professor Lupin unwittingly led them back to you, though because of the Fidelius Charm, they could not perceive the house, let alone get in. But they knew that you were somewhere in the vicinity. They began searching."

Harry closed his eyes. Strange how he kept having that urge to look out through them, though it was utterly pointless. "So they were out there when I crawled through that vent. But I still don't understand. It's ridiculous. I was underground, and it's not like I was shouting to give my location away. I was afraid of frightening Sals, so I was just whispering, really quiet."

"In Parseltongue," Dumbledore needlessly reminded him.

"Well, sure, in Parseltongue. At least . . . well, the truth is I can't tell when I'm speaking it, not until somebody gives me a look or a snake replies or something. But anyway, I might not have been speaking it at first, but then I picked Sals up, and then she answered so it must have been Parseltongue then . . ."

He sensed rather than saw the headmaster's long, pointed stare.

"Oh," Harry said, his voice almost inaudible. "Parseltongue. As far as anybody knows, I'm one of only two Parselmouths around."

"Well-reasoned," the headmaster commented. "As soon as Lucius knew you had to be somewhere nearby, he cast a spell over the entire area, a spell that alerts him to any use of Parseltongue. It seems they've used this before, to try to locate you. Well. The spell was of no use whilst you stayed inside the house, but once you left its confines?"

Harry nodded. "And what happened to Sals? Did she make it back upstairs to warn Remus?"

"Your brave little snake nearly expired from the effort, but yes, she did. She wrapped herself around Professor Lupin's ankle and pulled and tugged until he got the message and went into the cellar as she seemed to want. He put his head through the vent she indicated, and after that, it was fairly clear what had happened. Apparently the warding on Grimmauld Place meant that nobody inside could hear the blast itself, but thanks to your snake, Professor Lupin alerted Severus and me at once."

"But Sals is okay, now?"

"Harry, in between trying to find you, and rescue you, and then endeavouring to heal you once Severus had you safe, there hasn't been time to spare to look for your snake. No doubt she's still in your house, and doing fine."

"No, she was sick, really sick . . ." Harry suddenly stopped speaking, then resumed. "Oh, no. You don't think she was a Voldemort plant put there to get me to speak Parseltongue, do you? Tell me you don't think that."

"She could not have been," Dumbledore softly assured him. "Nothing with evil intent toward you could have been introduced into that house, not after Severus and Remus spent most of a night spelling it specifically to safeguard you. And that, Harry, isn't even counting the Fidelius Charm which guarantees that Voldemort could not have found where to plant her. Have no worries on that account; your snake is entirely blameless."

"Well, I know that," Harry murmured. "I just didn't want anybody else getting het up over it. Um, would you send some of the old crowd over there to look for her? Sals was so cold, I don't know how much longer she might have had . . . Please?"

"Certainly," Albus agreed, "though Harry, you should know that it's been a few days since Samhain."

"I've been lying here unconscious for days? Again?"

"Most of the time you were actually unconscious in an unplottable shack in Devon. Severus patched you up, kept you safe until the Death Eaters stopped swarming the Apparition boundary surrounding Hogwarts."

"I didn't go to St. Mungo's again?"

"It was safe to go there last time, since Voldemort was unaware you'd been injured donating marrow. This time, he anticipated such a move. It was being watched."

"Yeah . . ." Harry thought back to St. Mungo's. "Snape said then that it would have been better to take me somewhere safe, and summon a healer."

"Yes. He did exactly that, but as your magic is still . . . somewhat in flux, the treatments Marjygold recommended were largely, though not exclusively, Muggle in nature."

Vague memories stirred in Harry, then, memories less substantial than dreams. Mere wisps, only. Something tight wrapped around one wrist, and fragrant poultices laid across his brow . . . no, over his eyes, or what remained of them. And spells, so many spells, interspersed with bouts of swearing. He supposed he must be remembering Snape's frustration that magical cures didn't work quite as they should on him, any longer. But most of what he'd taken for dreams didn't seem magical at all, just as the headmaster had said. Thin broth spooned into him, hour after hour, while he lay barely able to swallow. And lemonade, and something a bit thicker, something that had tasted of barley, or oats.

The more he pondered it, the more the fog in his mind began to part. Warm fires banked each evening, and gentle fingers applying salve to each and every wound that dotted his body. Whimpering, and being rocked to sleep, the arms around him tightening every time the nightmares sprang to life. Those same arms again, holding him through awful chills. A hand lovingly clasping his. Lovingly? Well, maybe not. But caringly, at least . . . and a voice, that voice, quiet and soft, talking to him hour past hour as he lay enduring pain and fever that the potions couldn't cure. Talking of . . . well, nonsense, really. Harry couldn't put it together. Stories? Something about a yellow-eyed cat, and a herd of hippogriffs in Ireland, and cookies that made you sneeze.

He hadn't been awake, but he hadn't been asleep, and he actually didn't think he'd been unconscious, either. Just . . . drifting.

Harry brought his mind back to the story. "Um . . . so after Remus saw the cellar, he firecalled you, right?"

The headmaster hesitated, then divulged, "Severus immediately left his Potions lab and found some pretext for contacting key Death Eaters. He sounded them out, but not even Lucius would admit that you had been taken, let alone tell him where you were being held."

"They suspected he was a spy," Harry breathed.

"No, I think not. They know how to guard their secrets, that is all. However, there is no doubt now that Severus' true loyalties are known. In full view of Voldemort, he portkeyed you away."

The Dark Mark, Harry thought. Voldemort will torture him now, through the Dark Mark.

Harry lifted his water to his mouth, but his hand was shaking so much he spilled most of it down the soft pyjama top he was wearing.

The headmaster took the glass away, set it down with a decisive clink, and cleared his throat. Then he waited until Harry calmed. "Severus and I have talked, though your condition made it rather superfluous. It is quite obvious what he allowed to happen to you at that meeting, but I understand it went beyond that, Harry." A long pause. "That he held you . . . for them. Harry, it may take some time, as I said, but we will see you healed of all your injuries. I must tell you, my boy . . . I am so very sorry for all that Severus had to do."

Had to do. Even the sound of the phrase made him sort of sick. "Um . . ." he answered, swallowing hard, then reaching out for his glass, finding it, and drinking what little was left of the water. "Um, well . . ." His voice cracked. "I know."

"Harry, Severus does not often . . . he does not care to show emotion, but---"

A roiling nausea rocked through Harry. "I need Stomach Calming Draught," he choked out, struggling not to disgrace himself.

It took only a moment, and a whispered conversation, for Dumbledore to procure some from Madam Pomfrey. "There, there, drink it all," he murmured as he held it to Harry's lips. By then, the boy's hands were shaking so badly there was no question of his managing on his own. "Better now, Harry?"

"A bit," Harry admitted, drawing in a few deep breaths. "Potions sort of halfway work on me just now."

"Yes. Severus mentioned as much. You may have to be in the hospital wing a little longer than the usual."

Harry shrugged, not really caring about that. He was pretty well used to it, even if his typical visits had him patched up overnight and ready for Quidditch again in the morning. "So, the story. S-- er, S-- Snape, nobody would tell him where I was being held. And . . .?"

"With Samhain just two days away, he deduced that you would be presented by Voldemort to be . . . sacrificed. We delegated the search for you to several dozen Aurors, Tonks included. Then, Severus and I devoted ourselves to the question of how to rescue you from the meeting itself, assuming the Aurors' search efforts failed."

Harry drew in another breath. The Stomach Calming Draught was helping a bit more, now. "Okay, it's simple then. Snape brought a Portkey to the meeting."

"You cannot believe things are as simple as that," the headmaster chided. Harry heard robes rustle as he leaned forward, and flinched back a bit, but the old wizard merely rested his hands on the bed sheets, not touching Harry. "You must know, Harry, that Severus would have portkeyed you out of there instantly had that been an option."

"Yeah, I know that," Harry admitted. "It's just hard, thinking he had it on him the whole time, but I had to wait . . . through that . . ." Deep shudders coursed through his shoulders. "So, what's the story then? Anti-Apparition wards snapped into place the minute Malfoy brought me through to the meeting? Um, anti-Portkey wards, anti-pretty much anything wards?"

"More or less." There was a sad smile in the headmaster's voice. "I had taken the precaution of placing a tracking charm on Severus. A very weak one, or Voldemort would have noticed it, but it was enough to give the Aurors and me a focus for our spells. We drained ourselves, spent hour after hour trying to unlock the wards, to find some way through to you, while Severus watched for his chance on the inside. The Portkey was spelled to heat when it became active, so that Severus would know within an instant that there was finally a way out for you."

"Oh, okay," Harry sighed, starting to understand. "He had to wait until your spells broke through."

"And in the meantime," the headmaster continued, sounding as though his hands were softly patting his robes, "he had no alternative but to act the part of a loyal Death Eater. If he had attempted to rescue you before he had a true means, he could only have achieved both your deaths."

"Yeah, yeah, I got that, all right? I'm not stupid!"

"No, but you've been through a terrible ordeal, and at the hands of someone you . . . to be honest, Harry, I'm not quite sure how you've felt of late."

Harry waved his hands wildly until his sore muscles protested. "It was a terrible ordeal at the hands of someone I trusted, all right? Trusted! It was horrible." Feeling like he was strangling, he began gulping air, and it only slowly came to him that he was trying to cry. Trying . . . but he couldn't, and not because he was ashamed to blubber like a baby, though that was certainly true. No, the real reason he couldn't cry, he thought, was because of Lucius Malfoy's vicious use of the needles. He hadn't just jammed them into Harry's eyes, he'd damned near mangled everything in the vicinity. Tear ducts, too. Harry gulped again, and tangled his hands into the bedclothes, gripping them with both fists. It was either that, or give in to a reflex to rub his eyes, and he really didn't want to find out how bad that would hurt.

"Ah, Severus," the headmaster abruptly said, his voice sounding as though he had turned to face another direction. "So good to see you out of your laboratory. Harry and I were just talking about the . . . ah, incident . . . at Samhain."

"Mr Potter has my most sincere apologies," Harry heard his teacher stiffly say. He sounded so formal. Not just that, but angry. Stiff. It came to Harry in an awful rush of understanding that Snape had been acting just this way the last time he'd seen him before Samhain. They'd fought over Harry's having asked about the Death Eater meeting, and Snape had insisted he look in the pensieve and see it for himself. And afterwards, he'd been so very cold toward Harry. Snape had said that Harry could firecall him in the middle of the night, if needed, but he'd sounded so methodical about it. As if . . . there were certain things he'd bring himself to do because they were necessary, but he'd do them without compassion, or affection, or sympathy.

That conversation seemed so long ago, now. Unimportant, distant. But maybe it wasn't, not for Snape, since this behaviour was more of the same.

"I have brought the boy's potions," Snape was saying, his voice completely without emotion. "The green one first. Let it cool completely, then have him take it with food. An hour after, the blue."

A whirl of robes, and the Potions Master was turning to go, without a word to Harry.

"These are for his sight?" the headmaster prompted, halting the man's exit.

"Yes," Snape snarled, actually snarled. "If that is all, Headmaster, I have more brewing to do."

"I believe Harry needs to speak with you--"

"What Mr Potter needs," Snape loudly announced, "is Scaradicate Salve, and Blood Replenisher, and Skele-Gro for his chipped bones, and no doubt, a great deal more Healing Draught and Painless Sleep! And he needs them all made fresh, to maximum potency, if they are to have much hope of interacting with his magic, which as you know, is in an indeterminate state that at present defies all diagnosis! And I have more Eyesight Elixir to tend to in the dungeons, or did you wish the child to remain blind?"

"Go, Severus," Dumbledore said in tones of defeat.

"Wait!" Harry called, but when he heard his teacher's stomping steps pause, he didn't really know what to say. It didn't help that he felt so very ill just knowing Snape was near, or that he could feel himself shaking with an absolutely irrational fear. He fought his way past it. "Um, er . . . will you come back later, sir? I . . . I really did want to talk with you."

A pause, and then a longer pause, still. "I will endeavour to be back later this evening, Mr Potter," Snape heavily announced, as though the prospect of such a visit was second only to drinking pure hemlock.

Harry, the boy thought rather desperately, but didn't say it. Snape hadn't called him "Harry" since before the disaster with the pensieve. From the sound of things now, he never would again.

The footsteps stomped off.

"Harry," another voice said. Dumbledore, again. "Would you like to eat now, and take your potions? Or should you like to hear the rest? There isn't much more."

"Let's just finish," Harry said, the words somehow feeling heavy. "The potion has to cool first, anyway. You were telling me about the Portkey. You finally found a way to wake it up, despite all Voldemort's wards?" He huffed, and crossed his arms before his chest, a feeling of being hurt welling up inside him. But this hurt wasn't physical. Somehow, it was worse. "Kind of convenient, wasn't it, the timing and all? I mean, wait until after I've been tortured and blinded, wait right until Voldemort's giving up on letting Malfoy burn me and is starting in on me himself!" He knew he was being unfair, but he couldn't seem to stop the words. "Couldn't you lot have found a way to break through a little sooner?"

"But that's just it, Harry," Dumbledore softly admitted. "We never did break through his wards. You did. Your magic went completely wild for an instant, and nullified every spell for leagues around. Severus felt the ring heating, and leapt to touch it to you. The timing . . . well, you did that."

Harry was staring without seeing, trying to comprehend that. He vaguely remembered a feeling of utter power blasting through his bones and flesh and skin, the sound of Death Eaters scrambling for cover. "I did that," he acknowledged, nodding. "I did something similar when I was locked alone in the cell, but it was weaker . . ." His eyes closed. "If I could do it at the end, then, why not any earlier? I did try, I did. I felt . . . too drained. The needle didn't even bend," he added irrelevantly.

The headmaster ignored what Harry had said about not being touched, and lightly patted his hand. Harry shivered, hating it, but managed not to do something drastic like roll away. "Wild magic, such as you did, is called that for a reason. It's not well understood. I think perhaps you needed something truly remarkable to happen before you could unleash it."

"Headmaster," Harry groaned, "having my eyes practically shredded while they were still in my skull was truly remarkable, don't you think?"

"A physical intrusion. What happened later was a magical intrusion, Lucius Malfoy attempting to set your very magical core on fire. You fought back. Admirably well." Fingernails clinked against glass as he touched his hand to a vial of potion. "This has cooled, but you must take it with food, as Severus said. Shall I summon you a meal? Do you feel able to eat?"

"Yeah." Strangely enough, he wasn't ravenous, and it had been a while since he'd eaten at the cottage, hadn't it? Maybe, since he'd been at Hogwarts, Snape had been spelling nutritive potions into him, or something. Or better yet, Madam Pomfrey, because now it seemed to Harry that Snape wouldn't bother doing that himself, not now that he hated Harry again. Maybe all those memories of the cottage weren't memories at all, but dreams. They were so faded and blurry, Harry couldn't really be sure. Ha, he thought. I've always really, really wanted somebody to hold me and take care of me when I was feeling ill. Ten to one I dreamed all that just because I wanted it so bad.

At least the headmaster, and Madam Pomfrey too, had enough sensitivity to leave Harry alone for his meal. They didn't even offer to help feed him, or arrange for someone else to, and Harry was grateful for all of it. In the first place, he wasn't very good company at the moment, and in the second place, he really didn't want anyone watching as he fumbled blindly about. He made a right mess of everything: tray, sheets, his own clothes, but he didn't care. He wasn't even thinking about it, which probably explained why he was so clumsy. It wasn't like him.

But he had other things on his mind. Why was Snape so blasted mad at him? Surely Harry was the one who should be angry! Well, actually he was. Mostly at Voldemort and Lucius Malfoy, and Death Eaters in general, but Snape was mixed up in there somewhere, even though Harry wasn't stupid and he did understand what his teacher had done, and why.

But why was Snape so mad at him? So mad he wouldn't even talk to him! Just like he'd been about the pensieve, only worse . . .

Harry suddenly felt all the food he'd eaten try to rush back up his throat. He swallowed hard--dang, he was getting pretty good at forcing back queasiness--and felt again that peculiar sensation of needing to cry and not being able to. Because that was it, wasn't it? It all went back to that night when Snape had made him look in that horrid pensieve. Harry had demanded to know what went on at a Death Eater meeting, and Snape had been offended at the question, let alone the way Harry had gone about pushing it.

And now, he knew what went on at a Death Eater meeting, didn't he? He knew personally just how evil and sick and twisted that snakelike son of a bitch could get. And Snape probably thought that Harry had got what he deserved. He'd wanted to know, and now he did.

Great gasping sobs took hold of him as he shoved his tray away with both hands and heard it clatter on the floor. Collapsing to his side, Harry shoved a fist in his mouth, and bit down hard to stop his blubbering. So Snape was an unfeeling prick. So what? It wasn't like he hadn't known that from way back. But it hurt, even though it shouldn't. It hurt, it really did.

At least he was calm by the time Madam Pomfrey came to scourgify everything in sight, Harry included. Even better, she knew better than to so much as pat him on the head. Harry supposed she wasn't a licensed Medi-Witch for nothing.

"Come now," she said in brisk, professional tones. "It's time for the second half of your Sight Restorative Potion this evening."

She let Harry push up on his own, let him take the vial and drink it unassisted, just as she'd let him eat on his own, no matter the mess it made.

"Now, sleep, I should think," she continued. "Do you need anything else, Mr Potter?"

Drowsiness was already washing over him. Something from the Potion? He didn't think so. It felt more like emotional exhaustion. "No," he said, flopping back. "Thank you . . ."

He was asleep before he even heard her moving away.

How long he slept, he couldn't have said. But at some point, he seemed to wake . . . though it was more like those drifting, dreamlike states he'd experienced in the cottage in Devon. He couldn't move, but he surfaced to some sort of awareness.

He heard voices, over by the door. Snape and Dumbledore, whispering, their tones low and hushed.

" . . .no," Snape was hissing. "No, Albus. Do not suggest this again."

"But surely," the headmaster softly insisted, "if you would just speak to him, Severus . . ."

"I will not speak to that irresponsible idiot if I can possibly avoid it, Albus, is that not clear to you by now? He left the house! You know what that led to."

"Severus, be reasonable. He didn't realise--"

"Oh, he never realises, that one," Snape quietly snarled. "Never thinks of anyone but himself. But he should have, Albus. What are we to do now, to stay ahead of the Dark Lord's mad schemes? Thanks to him, the Dark Lord will never trust his secrets to me, again!"

"Severus--"

"No, I will not talk to him. And what is more, Albus, I am of half a mind to stop making his potion, as well. Let him suffer. I certainly can't bring myself to care."

A heavy sigh, and footsteps stalking away.

Harry bit his hand again, and told himself it was just as well he couldn't cry.