Several things happened all at once when Severus Apparated into the sitting room at Spinner's End. The least of these was the half-stifled squeak of a surprised house elf going about her chores. The elf -- Dappin -- popped out of the room and returned a moment later with a thick blanket to cover the nearly naked child Severus was carrying. This was just as well, because the most traumatic of events was that Harry had stopped breathing.

Cursing himself in seven distinct languages, Severus summoned the blanket with the wave of one hand, while with the other he eased Harry onto the settee. He drew his wand in a quick motion and cast a complicated spell over the boy's chest and head. A blue light flared briefly in the air over Harry's body, then vanished. From Harry himself there was no response. Nothing.

"Accio Revivifier Potion!" Severus called and from down the main hall, a cabinet door slammed open and a bottle of translucent yellow fluid hurtled into his outstretched hand. He poured it down the boy's throat, or tried to, holding Harry's head up slightly. But the potion just filled his mouth and dribbled out the corners, and no amount of pressure on his throat would make him swallow.

Frantic now, Severus tried the spell again. "Respiro Coactum!" Still nothing. Harry's lips were blue against skin bright red from exposure, but even as he watched, both lost color, changing to a waxy hue. He prodded the boy's throat with his fingers, and felt a pulse, weak and thready, but if he couldn't get the child to breathe . . . He tipped Harry on his side and let the potion spill onto the settee, completely unconcerned with the mess, then closed his eyes and lifted his wand a third time. Tracing the spell with utmost concentration, he growled the words through gritted teeth. "Respiro Coactum!"

The blue light flared again, but faded this time, too, without affecting the boy. The heavy weight of guilt pulled Severus down into the dark part of his soul. The adrenaline of his rage at the Dursleys drained out of him, leaving him shaking, spent and boneless. He gathered the boy close and rocked him back and forth, bowing his head over the tiny, concave chest. Oh, if only he had gone to Privet Drive when Dumbledore first asked him! Perhaps the damage done to this poor boy would not have been so horrible. And why had he Apparated them? He should have walked, or taken the Knight Bus, anything! He'd known the boy would been worse off for it!

Merlin, he'd killed the child.

An ache so deep he never knew he had the capacity for it, swamped his chest, and his head swam with a million self-recriminations. He whispered over the poor, broken body, "Oh, child. Harry, I'm so sorry . . ."

----

The darkness was comfortable, and he was without pain or want for the first time in forever. The boy rested, weary, and knew his torment was at an end. The yard was gone, and the hated leash. The sun had set, he thought, but he wasn't cold anymore. He could stay here forever, buoyed by the soft, forgiving darkness, at peace. Left alone.

A jolt of something went through him, then another, but the prickly sensation ended quickly, so he paid it no mind. He was safe here, in the quiet.

But then something eddied at the shore of the darkness, a shape blacker still. He shied away on instinct, heading for the deeper, calmer quiet of this place. The shape followed him, rippling the darkness around him like a stone tossed into a stagnant pool. Then, quite clearly, he heard a whisper of his name."Harry, I'm so sorry."

Harry was his name, not whelp or boy or freak. And someone was saying it. No one had since . . . since Miss Egglestrom in day school when he'd been allowed to go. She had called him Harry and he didn't even realize she was talking to him at first, not till she'd crouched in front of him and asked if he had a hearing problem. He didn't, but she told his aunt and uncle about his eyes, after he'd squinted at her all day, and made them get glasses for him.  This voice didn't sound like Miss Egglestrom at all, though; it was lower and gruff, and kind of sad. Who could it be?

Harry wanted to open his eyes and see, then, but it was like they were glued shut. His chest started to hurt, as if it were swollen, and he couldn't breathe! The darkness, far from comforting now, reminded him of the close, smothering feel of his cupboard. But there wasn't any light at all around the edges of the door. There was no door!

Panic seized him and a wind like a hurricane whipped through the dark. He wanted to breathe. He wanted to see. Sudden warmth engulfed him, stretched his muscles and tightened his bones. His heartbeat thudded in his ears and he smelled moth balls, close by. For one long, aching moment his heart stalled. Then the warmth returned and the beat resumed.

With a little sigh, he opened his eyes.

A man was holding him and had him wrapped in a blanket that had the moth ball smell. The man's eyes were closed at first, and almost hidden by a curtain of long hair as dark as his own. His mouth was moving and it took a moment for Harry to realize that the man was just saying his name, over and over. Even before he finished that thought, the man's eyes opened wide and stared at him.

The boy wasn't allowed to look at people's faces, so he averted his gaze immediately, and the man didn't yell at him for the mistake. He struggled to get out of the blanket, so he could get back on the floor -- he knew people weren't allowed to touch him like this, and he certainly wasn't allowed on a couch. But everything hurt so much, he only managed a gasp before dizziness overtook him.

The man tightened his hold, which hurt even more, but he would not cry! Crying only made everything worse. Uncle Vernon said so, even though Dudley was allowed to do it when he didn't get a third pudding. He stopped struggling, though, since the man seemed to want that.

"Harry?" the soft voice said.

"Y'sir?" he whispered back, feeling his way over teeth and tongue. Aside from the snake, he'd not spoken to anyone for days, not since . . .

"Thank, Merlin." The man rocked back onto his heels and continued, "I'm going to take you upstairs now, all right? To a bed where you'll be more comfortable, and we'll see about these injuries. Understand?"

"Yes, sir." He didn't know where he was, and wasn't entirely sure he wasn't dreaming.

The man rose, and Harry had to bite his lower lip to keep from crying out. He tasted blood, warm and thick, mixed with the remnant of a bitter fluid on his tongue. He swallowed convulsively and felt another little jolt. This one brought tears to his eyes. He blinked them away, furious.

"It's all right, Harry, just a few more steps. It's all right," the man said, and his voice was smoother now, soothing.

Then he was laid out on a soft, dry surface -- the bed? -- and overhead he could pick out a light blue ceiling and blurry white shapes that might be clouds if he squinted. He lay very still as the man removed the blanket, and didn't even flinch when his clothes disappeared, too, but kept his eyes on the clouds. It hardly occurred to him to wonder why he didn't have to pull his shirt over his head to remove it.

He was cold now, though, and shivered and tried to wrap his arms around himself, which set off another wave of pain. He turned his head just in time to avoid puking on himself. The vomit, water with flecks of blood and a yellow syrup, dribbled onto the bed instead.

"Sorry, sir," Harry rasped when he could get a breath to do so. "M'sorry."

"Easy," said the man, and his hands took hold of his shoulders and rolled him onto his side. One long, slender finger gently swabbed inside his mouth, clearing it of the yucky taste. "It's all right."

Harry closed his eyes, too tired to even thank the man.

"Harry," the man's voice urged. "Stay awake now."

But he didn't want to and felt himself falling back into the welcoming dark.

----

When Harry succumbed to sleep once more, Severus debated using a potion to wake him and keep him alert. Despite a miraculous recovery as a result of the boy's own magic, Severus did not like the glassy, dilated look of Harry's eyes, nor the shivers that wracked the pitifully small frame, despite multiple warming charms on the air, bed and blankets. But he finally decided against it, at least for the moment, since it would be much easier to work on the boy and clean him up if he was asleep.

As it was, Severus didn't dare use a calming draught or pain relief potion, as he didn't know how much of the Reviver potion the boy had ingested. Enough of that one, combined with either of the other two, could be fatal in such a small body. He cleaned the vomit away with a wave of his wand.

Over the next few minutes, Severus set up several monitoring charms, for respiration, heart beat, temperature and level of consciousness, then began the long process of healing the boy. He started with a diagnostic scan, which left him faintly nauseous as the list of injuries and illnesses went on and on . . . Then he Accioed two more potions before just ordering Dappin to bring him his medical box, where he kept a good supply laid in. Being a Death Eater for two years, and then a Death Eater-Turned-Spy for another two, even before the Dark Lord's disappearance, had its benefits. Other than professional healers, he had set more bones and healed more burns, contusions and curses than any other six wizards in Britain combined.

Three Scourgifies later, and the boy still stank of offal, and his skin was dark with filth, but his cuts were cleaned out, at least, and treated with a potion to speed healing. He next summoned a basin of warm water and a pile of soft cloths, and began to wash the boy. The water turned gray after only a few rinses, so he banished it and summoned more. He scrubbed behind the boy's ears -- which looked like they'd never heard of soap -- and between all his fingers and toes, and everywhere in between. He could count each rib, front and back, and shook his head at the obvious signs of prolonged neglect and malnutrition. Not just this one atrocity, then.

Once finished, Severus banished the basin, water and cloths as he decided what to tackle next. He frowned over the broken fingers, left arm and the ankle with torn ligaments. All three injuries had started to heal on their own, no surprise with youngsters, but none of them had been set properly first. The bones would need to be re-broken first, and the ankle . . . well, he'd have to be very careful with that one, or the boy would be left with a limp, regardless of how much he magicked it.

With a soft sigh, Severus cast a charm to put the child into a deeper sleep, so the pain of what he was about to do would not wake him. He applied a numbing salve to the hand, then waved his wand with a muttered spell -- one he had not cast since his Death Eater days -- and the bones snapped and rearranged themselves, ready to be set. He did so carefully, grimacing over the lack of flesh on the hand. He could feel each strand of tendon, and the child's fingers were like tiny twigs from a bird's nest. After charming the bones whole again, still unwilling to use more ingestibles like Skele-Gro, he continued his work methodically, the arm next, then a salve for sunburn. Another salve for the rash on the child's bottom, and one for the various bug and spider bites that littered his body. An ointment for the bruising on back, legs and face, then a triple casting of Contagio Inverno to eliminate various infections. He wrapped the ankle in a soft, flexible bandage, not willing to take on such a task without resting well first.

Harry was breathing more deeply now, and his dark lashes flickered against pale pink cheeks. So innocent he looked, so tiny. As if he were only three or four years old instead of seven. But only inches away from the pointed, elfin face was the nasty chain the Muggle had put around his throat. That had to go. Now.

A number of the links, each as long and round as his thumbnail, had pierced the boy's skin and dug in. In some places, a scab had formed over the embedded links, making it impossible for him to just banish the collar unless he wanted to scar the neck horribly. Severus' gaze flicked to the child's forehead. Harry already had one scar too many.

Slowly, with painstaking patience -- the likes of which he would never had admitted he possessed -- he removed the chain collar link by link from Harry's neck. The wound bled sluggishly; the boy was rather too dehydrated for more than that. After the bone breaking and salve rubbing he had done earlier, Severus was surprised that this job caused the boy to moan and attempt to turn away from his hands.

So Severus found himself speaking in a low tone he might use with an injured bird, soft meaningless words meant only to soothe ruffled feathers. The boy seemed to hear him, though, and subsided.

At last he was done, the last link freed, the chain's clasp released and the collar removed. He healed the last wound and inspected his work, wiping sweat from his forehead. A quick cast of Temporus let him know he'd been almost four hours at work on the child. He was as weary as if he'd been dueling all that time. He sat heavily on the edge of the bed for a moment before summoning one of his own nightshirts. He shrunk it down before cautiously dressing the boy in it, mindful of the recently healed limbs. Even shrunk, the shirt swamped the boy, made him look almost like a doll. With another silent vow to pay back the Dursleys for their kindness, Severus tucked the child into the bed and pulled one of the heavier quilts up to cover him.

He considered a moment longer. He would like to leave the boy in this deep sleep a while longer, to let his body continue healing, but he knew Harry needed fluids. Not food yet, perhaps; it was possible his stomach was too small or damaged for that. But watered milk, certainly, and some broth. It had also been long enough for the Reviver potion to have worked out of his system, so a vial of pain reliever would not be amiss.

After giving Dappin instructions on what he wanted, he brought Harry out of the deep sleep to the edge of consciousness while waiting for the house elf to return. He put a hand on the boy's injured arm as he did so, to prevent any flailing, if the boy was frightened when he woke.