Harry was a little bit bothered.  Where had the white gone?  The white that had been everywhere and had brought calm and comfort and warmth and where had it gone? 

Somewhere along the way it had fallen to black and he’d been smothered by it and sleep had claimed him again but now, oh!  Now he could hear voices and shouting and oh!  Smashing glass!  Well that was unexpected.  And he’d been so comfortable.  Comfortable and warm and held and rocked and now he was still and unmoving and his hand felt so very empty and he didn’t know how to fill it.  He didn’t like this. 

He opened his eyes and couldn’t really tell the difference.  The black became lighter and colourful but it lacked something vital and he remained disinterested.  No matter how he moved his eyes, no matter which direction he looked in, he couldn’t see anything that could capture his interest because all he wanted was the white or that hand or the warmth to return but all of that was gone now and he was so cold and so empty, just like the world around him.  Somehow, without really feeling it, he knew he was lying on his back and so he pushed himself to his elbows and up, up to sitting.  He might as well have been seeing from the same angle as before though... or perhaps he was... they continued to lack what he was looking for.  He heard some kind of mutter that he knew was supposed to mean something to him but it just... didn’t.  Why was he so cold? 

And he’d been happy.  So happy.  Surrounded by white and warmth and that hand... that hand that had briefly held his... and the eyes... the eyes that were so... familiar...

He shivered and felt a slight weight settle around his shoulders and he hunched them in a half-hearted attempt to remove whatever it was but it didn’t really matter now did it?  Everything was gone.  The eyes, the hand, the warmth.  All gone.  He sighed, dispirited, and vaguely felt his shoulders droop as he gave up trying to sit properly.  There wasn’t much point was there?  Not anymore.  Not when so much was missing.  He let go of a previously unfelt tension and relinquished himself to the murmur in his mind that he realised had been there for quite awhile now.  The one telling him not to think, not to argue, not to protest or react.  He relinquished himself hoping that in this surrender he might find peace because he didn’t know where else he could possibly look.

Poppy was being as attentive as was possible to a Harry who might as well have remained unconscious for all his responsiveness.  The boy had sat himself up and stared into space, completely vacant, as she checked his vitals and smoothed blankets around his shoulders – which he seemed to idly try to shake off before giving up – and prepared potions while Severus stood guard on the other side of his bed, scowling fiercely at Umbridge while underneath the layers of raw hatred for her there writhed the concern for the boy in the bed.  The wizard and witches across the room hadn’t moved, frozen in their tableau as much as Severus and Harry.  Only Poppy was afflicted with restless motion as she tried to fix what was broken.

Umbridge, somehow missing the way the most powerful wizard of the age was glaring at her after having shattered and immediately repaired any number of glass windows in his ire, stepped toward Harry as though she owned the room and everything in it and Severus growled, “Don’t even think about it.”

“I think you’ll find as High Inquisitor-”

“I think you will find,” Albus began deceptively softly, “that that title has no power here anymore.  In fact...” Albus visibly drew himself up and his hands, with nary a twitch, resonated with an ominous boom that seemed to visibly ripple the air around them before he continued as if nothing had happened, “the material evidence of your input in this school no longer exists.”

Umbridge became increasingly flustered in the face of his continuing dismissal and seemed to puff up even as her face turned deep pink, clashing horribly with her attire.  She opened her mouth – clearly to continue raging – and with another, faster movement of his hand Albus had her silenced.  Despite rapidly turning an alarming shade of red she didn’t utter a sound for which Severus was incredibly grateful.  He hadn’t been sure how much longer he could have held off silencing her himself, and in far more stress-releasing ways that he doubted his employer would have approved of.

“I am afraid, Delores, that we will have to continue this later.”

Severus was pleased to note that Albus didn’t sound ‘afraid’ at all and watched gleefully – though of course he tried hard not to let it show – as Albus continued to release his angry, pent-up magic and Umbridge was suddenly sucked from the room – presumably to Albus’ office – as though through a vacuum cleaner, mouth open in a soundless, outraged scream.  Severus found he couldn’t quite suppress his smirk.

Turning to look at Albus he found that his mirth wasn’t shared and the old man’s eyes were already fixed on the still unresponsive Harry and the bandages that, due to his earlier movements, had become visible above his hospital gown.  Only he and Poppy knew that they currently covered large swathes of the boy’s body to allow one of Severus’ salves to keep the numerous open wounds that refused to heal disinfected.  It would take some time for Severus to develop something to heal the words magically cut into his skin.  He wouldn’t allow himself to consider the possibility that he might not be able to.  No one deserved what Harry had endured; for there to be such a poisonous physical memory was just too much. 

Albus inhaled, clearly about to speak but instead closed his mouth again with a sudden smile though his eyes never left Harry.  Severus looked at him, baffled, until he heard a quiet knock at the door at the same time as hearing Minerva’s surprisingly good-natured mutter of, “why am I surprised.”  She looked to the Headmaster and he nodded with a smile, small but more genuine than any he’d worn that morning.  

When she opened the door and stepped out of the Infirmary Severus caught a glimpse of bright orange hair and Hermione Granger’s earnest face and realised he shouldn’t have been surprised either, and wasn’t so much with their presence as he was with the warm feeling he experienced when he saw them.  At least Harry hadn’t been completely alone.  Which brought to mind something else important.

“Albus, I...” his employer turned twinkling eyes on Severus and the Potions Master fought to find the words he wanted.  I want to keep him hardly suited the situation... unless Harry became a puppy sometime in the near future.  The knowing look his employer was directing his way was supremely irritating but was ultimately of little importance.  It wasn’t as if Severus hadn’t seen – and ignored – that look before. 

“Albus,” he began again, “the boy clearly needs someone... several someone’s,” he added under his breath, though the sad little chuckle told him Albus had heard anyway.  Even so, he struggled to find the right words and the Headmaster finally took pity on him.

“You wish to be there for him.”  It wasn’t a question and Severus didn’t offer the – rather obvious – answer.  “I would not object to the help,” Albus continued.  “Though I am rather curious about this change of perspective you’ve adopted so very recently.  It will be hard when he hasn’t had the opportunity to come to the same conclusions as you evidently have.”  He looked thoughtful for a moment.  “Regardless, he could use the support, particularly with his healing.  He will need much that Poppy cannot provide for him.”  Severus cast him a dubious look.

“I am perfectly capable of handling many of Potter’s medical needs and I can do my best with his psychological ones but even I can’t rival Poppy.  If it comes down to who would be better for Potter-”

The Headmaster held up a hand to stop Severus.  “No, there is nothing that Poppy is able to do for him that you can’t; in reality there is little that can be done for Harry without the involvement of St Mungos.”

“You think his state of mind so precarious?”

“Not necessarily.”

Severus swore he could feel his blood pressure rising.  This wasn’t the time for riddles.  “Albus, what...”  And then Severus really thought about it.  It wasn’t Harry’s state of mind that Poppy was unable to help so it had to be medical.  Physical.  Poppy had all but disregarded diagnostic charms when Severus had first called her to his rooms.  St Mungos were needed and hadn’t been called.  Albus had known for some time if his sudden weary resignation was any indication.  Even as the pieces fell into place Severus watched as the wizened old man ran the lightest of touches over Harry’s quilt covered foot as if in silent apology, eyes glazed and twinkle-less. 

“How long have you known?  How long has help been needed for him that was but a floocall away and that you didn’t enlist?”  He shot a brief glance at Poppy – now across the room.  “How long has she known?  How long have her diagnostic spells not been enough and nothing been done about it?  And for Merlin’s sake, why?”  There was quiet fury in Severus’ voice and the fact that Albus accepted it as if he deserved it only angered him further because Albus would only ever accept blame he knew he deserved.

“There was nothing to be done.  Poppy’s scans have never worked for Harry and I’ve always known that there are specialists at St Mungos that might have helped.”  Those wrinkled, paper-thin eyelids shuttered the swimming eyes and Severus wanted to hit something.

“And your excuse?”  He gritted out and the eyes opened with new resolve.

“Is just as valid as it always was.”

“Enlighten me.”

Albus met Severus’ gaze steadily, willing him to understand.  “Both of us felt it in his best interests to adopt a more... muggle way of diagnosing anything medical whenever possible.  Anything done in this infirmary by Poppy for Mr Potter is able to slide off of his medical documents.  Outside of this infirmary I cannot guarantee the same impunity and any drastic change to Harry’s medical records – say, an inability to magically diagnose a common illness due in large part to outside influences – would catch the attention of the Ministry.  Cornelius Fudge has always been rather interested in Harry and this school, both of which would be that much harder to keep from his grasp and out of the media if it should leak that either was vulnerable.”

“Am I to believe that is why that woman was given such a long leash?”

“Partly.  I admit it was easier to allow her and, by extension Fudge, some liberties to avoid a direct confrontation.”  Severus opened his mouth and Albus correctly interpreted the vitriol on his tongue and reassured him with another sad pat to Harry’s foot.  “I would not have allowed this though.  Never.”

Barely mollified Severus looked at the boy in the bed as well; digesting the information he’d just been given.  “In light of... everything, the boy will stay with me.”  He looked up, prepared to see a rejection of his idea (demand), expecting to have to fight, only to see Albus nodding thoughtfully, old eyes still on Harry’s glassy, sightless ones.  When he slid his gaze to his surprised Potions Master he smiled. 

“You were right, the boy needs someone,” he explained simply.

“You would entrust him to my care after... this.”  Severus waved a hand in the air in no particular direction in his effort to encompass everything.  He didn’t wish to jeopardise Albus’ approval but he was struggling to continue thinking the best of the man in light of so many mistakes made when it came to this particular fifteen year old.  The Headmaster’s face grew solemn as he regarded the younger man.

“If anyone besides that woman is at fault for this it is me.  For my own reasons I have had to take a backseat with Harry this year and I missed the signs that you, and only you, caught.  If not for your intervention I doubt Harry would be here.”  They both looked at the pale boy in the bed and wondered if he still was, if they hadn’t been too late after all.  Albus had a very soft look in his eyes when he glanced back at Severus.  “I can think of no one better to entrust Harry to.”  Severus was at a loss and Albus patted the foot under his hand again before turning to leave the infirmary.

“Albus,” Severus called and the man turned on the spot, looking very much like he had had an emotionally gruelling day for all that it was barely time for breakfast.  “I have a report to make concerning my whereabouts last night and how I came upon Harry.”  Albus was perceptive enough to catch on without anything more obvious needing to be said and nodded.  Severus regarded him steadily.  “You will not continue to ignore him as you have.”  It didn’t come out as a question but Albus shook his head tiredly nonetheless.  It wasn’t an answer to his statement; it was the gesture of a man who didn’t know what to do.  

The only answer he did give was, “we will talk later,” sweeping out of the infirmary doors as soon as he finished speaking.  Severus watched through narrowed eyes before he turned back to Harry and noticed as Poppy fluttered about him, a large white butterfly with starched wings.  When she noticed him watching she shot him a look all hopeless anxiety.

“I don’t know why he won’t respond,” she murmured to him and with that he was moving forward to reclaim the chair he’d sat in earlier and, after a moment’s hesitation, grasped Harry’s hand in his from where it rested on the bed.  The skin was cool and the fingers didn’t even twitch but something shifted behind Harry’s eyes when Severus’ warmer hand encompassed Harry’s small one and Severus felt some small hope that no matter how much damage might have been inflicted, he could get Harry through this.

Warm.  Harry’s hand was warm.  No, it was cold but it was surrounded by something warm, by another hand.  It wasn’t the one from before, the one he’d been missing, but it was... nice.  Big, callused and a little bit rough but in a way that assured Harry that he was well-protected.  These hands would keep him safe even while they emanated heat through his chilled skin making him feel safe.  He liked this hand, he decided. 

So, happier for the new feeling of security, Harry closed his eyes – it didn’t make much difference but it felt right – and slumped into something not unlike sleep.

After Harry had apparently fallen asleep – with the suddenness of coming to a decision that left Severus concerned and Poppy fluttering more agitatedly than before – Severus decided Poppy had done as much as was possible for the moment and suggested she take a break, assuring her that he would keep both eyes firmly on Harry in the meantime.  She hadn’t been thrilled at the suggestion but had eventually agreed that a nice cup of tea and some quiet time in her office would be beneficial to her own state of mind and fluttered off. 

“Rather more peaceful now isn’t it?”  Severus murmured to a dozing Harry as he found himself tracing veins and lines across the back of Harry’s hand and along his fingers while still enveloping it in his, noting how much larger his was than the child’s and feeling the protectiveness welling once more in his chest; a new feeling that somehow fit perfectly inside him like it had also meant to be there.  He didn’t have much experience with this sort of thing and he didn’t know why it was so, but keeping Harry’s hand in his, keeping him from drifting away like an errant balloon and trying to warm the thin fragile-looking fingers seemed like the best possible way to spend his time.  As though it was what Harry needed most right then, so Severus went with it.

What he did not need, Severus thought with frustration, was the commotion going on outside the hospital wing.  He glanced through the arched windows that showed the corridor beyond the hospital wing and saw Minerva with Harry’s friends, both of whom looked on the verge of panic attacks... or storming the infirmary.  He never thought it would happen but Severus found himself admiring the expression of concerned obstinacy on Weasley’s face. 

His eyes strayed back to Harry like magnets, unable to have his eyes anywhere else for fear of missing a change in the boy’s condition.  He stroked the hand in his again, the skin like tissue paper beneath his fingers, as he murmured, “with friends like that how did you possibly end up here?”

“We’re only trying to help and if you weren’t so bloody stubborn and set on lying to us and starving yourself and hiding away from the world you might be able to see it!”

The words wouldn’t leave Ron’s head.  Hadn’t since he’d first uttered them and their echoes had only gotten louder as time had passed and Harry hadn’t returned to the common room after his detention with Snape.   The entire day Harry had avoided him like the plague – clearly uncomfortable with the way Ron had seen him the night before in the bathroom, huddled in on himself and numb to the world – and when Ron was finally able to speak to him in Divination Harry had, well, scared him.  He hadn’t been the Harry that Ron was used to.  The Boy-Who-Lived.  The Saviour.  The kid who had far too much to deal with and always managed to find a way to deal with it anyway.  Instead, Harry had looked like a scared, hunted child and Ron had been scared too.  It was so obvious in that moment that whatever was going on was so much bigger than a few detentions with Snape and somehow he had missed it.

He hadn’t meant to say what he had at dinner; truthfully a lot of the emotion behind the words came from the fear he’d been harbouring over the very real possibility that maybe whatever was happening was beyond him and Hermione.  It was clearly beyond Harry.  So when Harry had exploded, Ron had responded in kind; driven by the tension and the fear and the concern and the sheer frustration of not knowing enough.  Harry had gone to his detentions, Ron had calmed and Hermione had rubbed her hand after hitting him too hard for the way he spoke to Harry, the two of them resigned to waiting until Harry returned from his detention before speaking to him. 

But he hadn’t returned.  Once it reached midnight Ron had had enough – visions of Harry huddled in a bathroom in the dark somewhere plaguing him relentlessly.  He retrieved the invisibility cloak from the top of Harry’s trunk, ignoring Hermione’s protests that he should stay put, and would have left then; would have searched the whole castle – or as much of it as any one person could – if not for the fact that the portrait wouldn’t open.  Ron had been dumbfounded for an embarrassing amount of time before realising that Hermione had used a sticking charm to keep him from leaving – ‘and if Harry comes back on his own before you do you know he’ll go looking for you while you’re looking for him and one of you or both of you will get caught and you know it isn’t always safe and I’m not letting you!’. 

He had been forced to tell her (sparing as much detail as possible for his friend’s sake; Harry had no privacy at the best of times) of the previous night.  She had been horrified and nauseated and close to tears but after needing some time to digest what he’d told her, she remained adamant that he should stay put.  He came so close to using a blast hex on the portrait from sheer anxiety until he realised that perhaps some parts of Hermione’s arguments made sense.  A bit.  But they couldn’t do nothing. 

He and Hermione spent hours deciding what to do.  Considering the possibilities of Harry’s recent behaviour.  Thinking about the past few years and all the times Harry had behaved similarly and if his current disappearance had anything to do with Sirius and Sunday night’s conversation.  No amount of ruminating and discussing got them anywhere and eventually the two of them, anxious and exhausted and quite without meaning to, fell asleep.  They practically vaulted from the common room the next morning upon waking and, after finding Professor McGonagall’s office empty and not knowing Dumbledore’s password, they went to the next logical place – Hermione clinging to practicality like a security blanket and Ron just about shaking with the need to know where Harry was already.  Because if Harry was gone and there was no one to ask, where else would he have landed himself other than the hospital wing?  Ron almost hoped he was there, safe and secure and wrapped up in bed because at least it would mean he was safe.

Of course he’d never expected that the conspicuous disappearance of professors was due to their being at Harry’s bedside.  He caught the briefest glimpse through the tiny crack in the door of his friend lying amongst infirmary sheets just like he’d imagined, surrounded by McGonagall, Pomfrey, Dumbledore and, of all people, Snape.  As comforting as he’d thought it would be to see his friend safe he suddenly wasn’t so sure that Harry was.  What was going on?  Why was he there and why was he surrounded by professors and why was Snape standing so sodding close?  Snape had a look on his face that Ron had never thought to see there and on those features he found he couldn’t quite decipher it because it was just too foreign.   It was all ridiculously confusing.

Hermione was jostling him a little to look in as well and in the next moment McGonagall was swooping down on them, hustling them out the door and closing it behind them.

“We went to your office before we came here,” seemed to fall in a jumbled mess from Hermione’s mouth in her effort to explain and Ron was disconcerted to see that McGonagall looked almost amused or relieved or something... as well as very, very tired.  “We didn’t mean to interrupt but why is Harry in the infirmary at all?  Is he sick?  Will he be okay?  Is he-”

“Miss Granger,” McGonagall cut in with a hand raised for silence.  Her eyes crinkled as she smiled at them both and it was just too bizarre for Ron who opened his mouth to demand answers – as politely as possible – when she continued.  “I cannot tell you much, it is his place to tell you when he’s ready and I must ask that you don’t pressure him.  He will need some time to recover but I am sure you will be able to see him soon.”

Ron was thoroughly bewildered and from the look McGonagall gave him he was sure it showed on his face but right then he couldn’t care less.  What on earth was all that supposed to mean?!

“But Professor, what does that mean?  What’s wrong with him?”  She had that sad look that teachers sometimes got – usually before a lot of sighing – when they knew they were going to have to repeat something unpleasant over and over again because a student was being purposely thick.  He jumped in before she spoke.  “Why can’t you tell us?”  And then she was sighing.  Fantastic.

“It is not a matter of being unable to tell you, Mr Weasley.”  She sighed again, suddenly looking as though she might fall over from exhaustion.  Ron noticed Hermione looked more disconcerted than he felt.  “Harry has been through a lot and whilst I can’t give you details I must say I am very glad he has such good friends.”  Ron was only becoming more worried as her explanation produced more questions than answers and it didn’t help when McGonagall put a hand on his shoulder, the other finding Hermione’s.  “In a few days Harry will likely need both of you very much; if you are patient I am sure you will soon know everything.”  She patted their shoulders once before walking away down the corridor, her robes swirling around her forbiddingly despite the emotional look on her face.

Ron looked to Hermione and found that she looked close to tears, though of frustration or sadness he didn’t know.  Probably both.  Just like him.