Harry gasped, pain shooting through every inch of his body. He’d been here before, in this place of crushing agony, but this time was different. This time he knew internal damage had been done. This time, he wasn’t sure he’d live through it.

He grasped his wand, unsure of how the Order members communicated with their patronuses but knowing that he needed to try. He closed his eyes and concentrated on Ron and Hermione, their smiling faces, on being back at Hogwarts, on winning the Quidditch Cup. “Expecto Patronum,” he whispered, and to his relief, the shimmering stag burst forth in an explosion of light.

“Message,” he wheezed, watching it fervently, “for Albus Dumbledore, Hogwarts.” He coughed once and winced in pain, lights flickering before his eyes. “From Harry Potter, Number Four Privet Drive, Surrey…” The brilliant stag pawed at the ground, as if impatient for him to finish. “Send help.” Harry tried with all his might to stay conscious. He wasn’t sure if the last word he uttered made it from his mind to his mouth before the darkness claimed him.

---

Severus Snape blew in from the Castle grounds. He had spent the evening in the forbidden forest collecting various ingredients for some of the rarer and more precious potions he brewed. It was unusual for him to be at the castle in the summer; he typically spent his breaks at his abode in Spinner’s End. However, Albus Dumbledore was traveling abroad on Wizengamot business and had asked Snape to watch over Hogwarts in his absence. Snape snickered. What could possibly go wrong with no students on site?

Exhausted and looking forward to a relaxing evening in front of his fireplace with a glass of brandy and the latest Potion Masters’ Digest, he made his way through the entrance hall and was just approaching the stairway to the dungeons when it happened.

A flash of light, and then a stag, prancing in front of him, blocking his way.

“What is it then?” he demanded.

“Message for Albus Dumbledore, Hogwarts,” the stag said in a whisper of a voice that sounded vaguely familiar.

Snape nodded. “Yes, go ahead then. I’m taking messages for the headmaster.”

“From Harry Potter, Number Four Privet Drive, Surrey…”

Snape rolled his eyes. Was there no escape from the meddlesome brat?

“Send help.”

Snape frowned. Why was the boy whispering?

“Hurr…” It was barely a breath.

“Repeat that last bit,” Snape ordered.

“Send help.” The stag pawed at the ground. “Hurry.”

Snape hesitated. If this was some sort of game Potter was playing, some ploy to get attention, he’d wring the boy’s neck. He didn’t have time for this nonsense. He was not Albus Dumbledore, blinded by the love of all things Harry Potter. The only thing that had him walking quickly in the direction of the castle gates was the sure knowledge that if something was actually wrong with the boy, which Snape very much doubted, Dumbledore would never forgive him for delaying.

---

Snape Apparated just shy of Privet Drive, making his way purposefully up the street. The cookie cutter houses were all the same design, save the color of their paint. He found number four soon enough. He made his way up the front walk and rang the bell. “Potter,” he grumbled, “if you are faking it, you are going to become intimately acquainted with the wrath of Severus Snape.”

An overly pudgy boy answered the door and looked up at Snape, eyes wide with apprehension. Snape supposed his long black robes did nothing to allay the boy’s fears. Smiling coldly, he was just about to open his mouth when a very rotund man, clearly the boy’s father, stepped into the hallway. In the background, a scratchy female voice sounded, “Vernon, who is it?”

Without being invited, Snape stepped inside and shut the door behind himself.

The portly man, clearly ‘Vernon’, quickly piped up. “I demand you leave this house at once!”

Snape merely arched an eyebrow and leaned against the now-closed door, arms crossed. The woman whose voice he’d heard made a sound of distress upon seeing him.

“Petunia,” he said in a cold voice, sweeping her with his gaze. She looked nothing like Lily. He had often wondered if she’d been adopted.

“You!” she breathed. “What do you want?”

“I received a distress call from this address,” Snape murmured. He expected to see blank stares on their faces. He expected to hear some drivel about Potter pulling a prank. Instead, dead silence fell. The boy shuffled his feet and looked at the floor, Petunia twittered about “that brat,” but the man—he stared directly into Snape’s eyes.

“I told you to leave,” Vernon said, taking a menacing step towards Snape, fists balled.

It was easy, really. Too easy. Muggles had no defenses whatsoever. He knew the man hated wizards, and perhaps he was just protecting the sanctity of his home, but somehow Snape didn’t think so. Something in his eyes told Snape that Vernon was hiding something.

It was like falling into a dank, musty well. The Muggle’s mind was soft and squishy, not at all trained and disciplined like a wizard’s. Snape pushed aside the mundane thoughts of work—drills and drill bits? How unoriginal— and looked for Potter. He found him in an instant, there in the man’s mind. And what he saw turned his blood to ice.

He had his wand out even before he was fully out of Vernon’s mind. “Out of my way!” he bellowed, shouldering his way through the people blocking the hallway. He vaguely heard the protests behind him, but didn’t stop to respond. He knew where the boy’s room was because he’d seen it in Vernon’s mind. His heart racing, he took the stairs two at a time. Any exhaustion he’d felt earlier in the night was gone, replaced by adrenaline at what he might find.

He took a right at the top of the stairs and plowed through the obese boy’s room. There was a second door, locked with a padlock. Every instinct screamed that Potter was locked inside. A quick flick of his wrist and the door flew open, banging against the inner wall.

Snape stilled, wand outstretched, scanning the room. Moonlight filtered in through the barred window. The stench of blood and vomit filled his nostrils, along with the sickly sweet scent of urine. Potter lay in a heap on the floor, his arm outstretched, fingers relaxed, his wand a useless piece of wood mere inches away.

Snape howled in rage. Potter wasn’t moving, wasn’t breathing. He was cold to the touch, his skin a dusky blue. Snape’s own heart pumped strong and loud as he sought desperately for the boy’s pulse. Nothing, dammit. Nothing! He placed a warming charm on the boy and rolled him onto his back to do chest compressions. He had to get Potter’s tissues oxygenated. The healer’s would be better at this, but he was afraid it would be too late, that it was already too late.

He placed his hands on Potter’s chest and pushed down, only to feel the sickening sloshing of broken ribs sliding around in the mess that was Potter’s chest cavity. A strange sounding whoosh of air made Snape realize that at least one of the boy’s lungs was punctured.

He looked up to see the Dursley’s gathered in the doorway.

“If he dies,” Snape snarled, “I will kill you myself, Vernon Dursley.”

With that, he wrapped Potter in his arms and Apparated them both to St. Mungo’s.