Realization seeped its way in like the first rays of dawn. And with it came the pain; excruciating and unbearable. Harry cried out, unable to suppress his screams. He glanced around, his vision hazy, and saw people in black robes gathered around him in a circle—Death Eaters. His gut clenched and nausea welled inside of him. His eyes shifted to where Voldemort stood as a new figured stepped into an opening in the circle and bowed low.

“Nice of you to join us, Severussss.”

Harry felt a jolt rocket through him.

“Have you not noticed our guest of honor?”

The newly arrived Death Eater—Snape, Harry now knew—looked towards him. Snape’s face displayed neither recognition nor regret, and Harry wondered how many times he’d witnessed—and participated in—similar scenes.

Voldemort turned his gaze to the woman on Snape’s left, Bellatrix Lestrange Harry realized with a start. “You may go next, my pet,” he said to Bellatrix, who giggled with maniacal anticipation. “And then you may have a turn, Severusss.”

“It would be an honor and a privilege, my Lord.” Snape’s voice. Harry felt the planes of reality shifting beneath him, the taste of blood and betrayal bitter on his tongue.

Suddenly Bellatrix stepped forward, a sick, twisted smile on her face. As she raised her wand, Harry felt his body bow and flex beyond its limits, bones and cartilage snapping as easily as brittle sticks, tortured screams issuing from his mouth until everything faded to black. But Bellatrix would not let oblivion claim him. Again and again she enervated him, reversing the blackness that kept trying to swallow him. Finally, the mad woman turned to Snape.

“A gift for you, Severus,” she sang, and then she slashed her wand viciously across Harry’s chest. “Sectumsempra!”

Harry shrieked in agony as Bellatrix carved his chest and abdomen, laying open his flesh. His body convulsed of its own accord as blood spurted wildly from the deep gashes.

In the background, he heard Voldemort’s distinctive hiss: “Severusss, have your fun with him.”

“Yes, master,” Snape responded.

Harry, delirious with pain and keening involuntarily, watched as Snape raised his wand and brought it down brutally. Harry felt his body arch wildly once again as he screamed. The scream seemed to go on and on, echoing without end. The edges of his vision were fading once more, but through the mist Voldemort’s pale face came into view, his slit-like nostrils flared.

“This, Harry Potter, this is who you have chosen as your savior?”

Harry, still swamped with pain and choking on his own blood, could not answer.

“This,” Voldemort said, pulling Snape into Harry’s line of view, “is who you have put your trust in?”

Harry tried to shake his head, denying all that Voldemort was implying, pushing back at the idea that Snape was a willing participant in all that had happened. Pain was clouding out even Voldemort now, and blood gurgled in his throat, depriving him of oxygen. Just as everything began to fade, he felt his airways clear, and with it, his vision, though the pain had not lessened.

The scene changed. Voldemort and Snape now stood facing each other, seemingly oblivious to Harry’s presence as he lay moaning mere feet away. They were no longer in a grassy field, but instead in an empty room with dingy white walls, a rickety old table and chairs leaning haphazardly against the far wall.

“Our plan, Severussss, is it ready?”

“Yes, master,” Snape said, his voice filled with relish. “I have the Potter boy. I have done as you asked; I have gained his trust. He will do what I say without question.”

“You will bring him to me then? Tonight?”

“Yes, master. I am ready to deliver him to you now if you wish.”

The look of eager anticipation and excitement that lit the Dark Lord’s mutilated face had Harry retching and vomiting uncontrollably. Blood and bile spewed from his mouth, along with one word: NO.

Harry’s new reality spun violently around him, the events of the past days and weeks turning sinister in this new light. Snape had not been on his side, as he had led Harry to believe. Lies, all lies!

Harry clenched his eyes shut, willing the pain to take him, kill him, release him from the hell that was his life, from the betrayal that was his destiny.

“You haven’t asked the most important question, Potter… Why? Why did I save you?” Snape’s voice echoed mercilessly in Harry’s head, the conversation they’d had that evening not so long ago coming back to him now.

“I wasn’t saving you, Potter, I was saving myself.”

Harry hadn’t understood at the time; but he understood now. He gritted his teeth against the welling nausea, but it was no use. He vomited again, cursing Snape to the ends of the earth as unconsciousness finally, mercifully, claimed him.

Potter had hit the ground hard and fast, the broom snapping beneath him in an echo of the boy’s bones. Snape’s heart was fit to burst from his chest as he raced out of the cottage, cursing six ways to seven.

Pulling out his wand, he ran a quick diagnostic scan: copiously bleeding gash to the forehead, mild to moderate concussion, hairline fracture of the cheekbone, three loose teeth, two cracked vertebrae—one of which was in the boy’s neck, a fractured collarbone, bruised ribs, broken left humerus and wrist, and a ruptured meniscus on the left side.

“Of all the stupid, idiotic, imbecilic things to do…” Snape muttered as he waved his wand over Potter to paralyze him before attempting to fix anything. It was never safe with head and neck injuries to move someone any more than was strictly necessary before they were healed.

With a wave of his wand, Snape cleaned and mended the deep gash on Potter’s forehead to stop the bleeding. Then studied the teen’s broken and twisted limbs, contemplating how best to set the various bones. Deciding to start with Potter’s wrist, he picked it up in one hand, only to feel an odd shutter run through the fingers. Looking up, he saw vomit spilling from Potter’s partially open mouth. More disturbing were the bulging eyes.

“Anapneo!” Snape shouted, before quickly vanishing the remaining vomit. He cursed himself for not thinking of this sooner. Head injuries could cause vomiting, and with the paralysis spell he’d put on Potter, the boy was a risk of choking on his own effluence. He put a quick monitoring spell on Potter’s airway, chastising himself for forgetting basic Wizarding first aid, and got back to work on the broken bones. He moved his wand in practiced motions, fixing the breaks and ruptures in the extremities first. He needed to calm down and focus before he worked on the upper body. Head and neck injuries could be tricky, even in wizards.

Finally, having healed all of the boy’s other injuries as best he could, Snape took a deep breath and concentrated on the delicate vertebral bones and tissues, carefully stabilizing and righting the two fractured vertebrae. He’d give an anti-inflammatory potion for the head injury to prevent brain swelling when he got the boy inside. Between the vertebrae and the concussion, not to mention the stiffness he’d experience in his newly mended arm and knee, Potter would have to lie still for a couple of days. Snape was satisfied, though, that the bane of his existence would indeed recover.

Sitting back on his haunches, Snape surveyed the reckless teen. Bits of splintered wood and twigs littered the grass around the boy, as well as a familiar bit twisted black metal and clear plastic. Cursing, Snape pocketing the item, and then waved his wand in a wide arc, banishing the remnants of the school broom from his sight. If Potter never rode a broom again, it would be too soon.

Shaking his head, Snape stood up. He had just levitated the boy when Potter began to vomit again. Turning the teen over in mid-air, Snape let the vomit spew onto the ground before doing the airway cleansing charm just to be safe. He’d have to give Potter a stomach calming draught as well, not to mention the various other potion’s the teen would need. Chastising himself for trusting Potter with a broom, Snape conducted Potter’s paralyzed and bloodied form back into the cottage.