"Harry. Harry!"

Someone was shaking him by the shoulder. The whole bed was rocking as Harry's body moved with the bed, making waves in the water-filled mattress. He opened his eyes. His head had fallen off the pillow and his face was resting directly against the water-cooled sheets. They felt nice against his over-warm skin.

"Wha' time izzit?" he muttered as Bill's face came into focus. He coughed against the rasp in his voice. Awareness came suddenly. "Is he back?" The question came out in a rough whisper.

"Not yet," answered Bill, adding, as Harry's face fell, "but he sent a message. He's got to go to his house for a while to take care of a few things. He'll be back tonight—might be late, though."

Harry had managed to pull himself up and was sitting with his back against the headboard. "His house? You mean Hogwarts?"

Bill smiled. "No, his own house, Harry. Where he lives when school's not in session."

"Oh." Harry had never before considered that Snape—or Sprout, or McGonagall, or Dumbledore, for that matter—had a home outside of Hogwarts.

"Listen, Poppy—Madam Pomfrey—flooed in to check you over while you were sleeping. She just ran some diagnostics without waking you. You're running a fever and have some severe chest congestion. She said your lungs are strained too from coughing up all that water so this flu virus may affect you more than it normally would. Anyway, she left a potion and you're supposed to take it now."

Harry grimaced as he swallowed the potion Bill handed him. "Must be one of Snape's," he muttered uncharitably. He was worried about Snape and that, along with the virus' progress through his system, made him grumpy and irritable.

"You want to sleep some more?" asked Bill. "Sever….Professor Snape suggested we spend some time working on your Charms assignment. Something about creating an original spell?"

"OK. My books are downstairs." Bill smirked as Harry struggled out of the wavy bed and stood up. He reacted quickly, fortunately, and caught Harry as the boy started to tilt once he was on his feet. "Dizzy," said Harry, sitting down quickly then falling backward to lie sideways on the bed.

"Stay there, then," said Bill. He conjured a chair—quite a different kind of chair than Snape had conjured the first night in the very same spot. Bill's chair was low and wide and made of dark leather. He settled down in it and leaned in a bit toward Harry, elbows on his knees.

"So, feel up to telling me about the assignment?"

Harry managed to discuss the Charms assignment—to create a variation of an existing common spell—for the better part of an hour, going over a variety of possible variations on the hover charm (could you, for example, hover something only to a very specified height? Or raise part of an object and not the whole thing, such as the sleeve of a sweater?) before finally drifting off to sleep again. Despite conversing about hovering, his limbs felt incredibly heavy. His head was hot and achy and his chest congested. He fell asleep again, still lying crossways in the bed.

He woke from time to time, accepting a cool drink, warm broth and potions from Bill, who otherwise left him alone. He thought he heard voices once when he awoke, but determined he must have been mistaken. Bill had promised to wake him when Snape returned. The next time he woke up it was dark, with only a pale band of moonlight lighting the room. He struggled to get up, kicking away sweaty sheets. He needed to use the loo. He didn't feel quite so dizzy and was able to make his way over to the door. When he opened it, he found, to his great surprise, that Snape was walking up the stairs carrying one of the oil lamps from the sitting room. He had a black robe thrown over his shoulder but was wearing the dark trousers and white shirt to which Harry had become accustomed of late. He looked both tired and distracted.

"Professor!" croaked Harry, his voice hoarse from illness, sleep and the battering his lungs had taken in the water and afterward.

Snape stopped two stairs from the top and held the light away from his face toward Harry. An odd look, passing from worry to relief and back to worry again, crossed his face. He walked up the remaining stairs and stopped a few feet away from Harry.

"How are you feeling? Mr. Weasley said you spent most of the day in bed—you have a virus?"

Harry steadied himself by leaning back against the doorframe. "Yeah, hurts to breathe. And I'm dizzy. Madam Pomfrey sent a potion." He let a relieved smile flit over his face. "You're back."

Snape ignored his last comment and patted his trouser pocket. "I have your next dose here, as well as the nerve regenerator. You missed your last dose. You are going somewhere?" He lifted an eyebrow. Harry almost smiled. Underneath the concern he was showing for Harry, it was the same old Snape.

"Just the loo," he said, taking the three steps necessary to get him across the hall to the door of the loo. He grabbed the doorframe again to keep himself upright.

"Do you require assistance in there?"

Harry managed to look horrified as he closed the door behind him without replying. When he returned to his bedroom, feeling very shaky after the short trip across the hall and back, Snape was there waiting. The professor had pulled the sweaty sheets off the bed and was changing them with a useful spell that set the new sheets unfolding and tucking in as he stood beside the bed, idly holding his wand. He twitched it one more time and the sheets folded back so that Harry could slide in. Harry actually fell in more than slid in, but the end result was the same. He was horizontal and no longer in danger of losing his balance and toppling over.

Snape looked at him and shook his head. He held out his hand to Harry. "Come, you'll need to be sitting up to take these potions." He steadied Harry with his hand while Harry scooted with difficulty into a sitting position. "Do you want me to change the bed back?" he asked.

"Back?" rasped Harry.

"To a regular mattress," explained Snape.

"No, I like it like this," answered Harry. "Keeps me cool."

Snape looked from Harry to the pile of sweaty sheets on the floor next to him.

"Can't help sweating," muttered Harry, taking the first potion that Snape held out. He scrunched his face up at the taste, but stoically took the second. Snape, meanwhile, had pressed his hand against Harry's forehead.

"I'll be back in a moment," he said, taking the empty vials from Harry and disappearing out the door. Harry heard him open the door to his bedroom across the hall, then walk down the hall again and downstairs. He was back within minutes with another potion and a glass of juice. As Harry took the juice from him after swallowing the potion, his eyes were drawn to Snape's shoulder. The black robes were gone.

"You're OK, then?" Harry couldn't help but ask. "You…took care of…business?"

Snape was silent for a moment. He finally sat down on the edge of the bed, turning sideways to face Harry.

"The Dark Lord is … upset. That you are not at Hogwarts. That is all you need to know."

"How does he know…?" Snape's pointed look stopped him before the question was fully formed. "Right. All I need to know."

"You are still perfectly safe here."

Harry scoffed, as much as he could given the state of his throat. Snape regarded him intently for a moment.

"Bill said you maintained your Occlumency shields on the beach an entire hour—after the attack." Harry noted that he had dropped the formal 'Mr. Weasley.' "Were you able to occlude the entire time? Did you see or feel anything from the Dark Lord?"

Harry had slipped back down and was lying semi-curled on his side, facing Snape. "It was really hard to behind my barrier," he said quietly. "Focusing on my heartbeat helped in the end—it's a lot like the sound I hear when I'm wrapped up in the bubble. And no—I didn't feel anything once I had my barrier in place. But…" Harry paused, coughed deeply several times and rolled over to his back. Snape was still sitting uncomfortably on the edge of the bed, regarding him closely.

"But…?" he prompted when Harry closed his eyes and didn't continue.

"I don't know," said Harry softly. "The attack was just different than the others last year. All I could feel was the pain. I couldn't feel any … any emotion behind it. Before…before I could always tell that he was angry, or really happy about something. This time it was just this sudden intense burning pain and pressure. And it didn't let up. It didn't really vary in intensity like it does when he's torturing someone…"

"I see," said Snape. His already drawn face had paled more. He swiveled so that both feet were back on the floor and he was facing the door. Harry rolled back over on his side and watched his professor's shoulders tense. He could see only a small part of Snape's face in profile, not much more than the sharp edge of his cheek and the end of his nose.

"What? What's wrong?" asked Harry.

"The pain—the burning pressure—as you describe it—you have never felt something like that through your scar before?"

"No. I mean, yes—I've felt pain—sometimes so bad it made me sick. But before there were always images attached to it." Harry stopped talking, coughed again and sighed. "That hurts. Feels like my throat is on fire."

"I'll go get some water to leave next to your bed," said Snape, standing up. "It's after midnight—you should try to sleep."

"You never told me what's wrong," said Harry from his position in the middle of the bed just as Snape reached the door.

Snape turned. "I have a theory as to what made this episode different—but I need to give it more thought before discussing it with you. Right now I am going to get you something stronger for that cough. You'll rip your throat to shreds if you keep coughing like that, and I'm not likely to get a minute of sleep with all the noise."

"OK," replied Harry. He yawned and closed his eyes. "But I want to know. I think it's important." He was nearly asleep when Snape came back with the water and another potion. He downed the potion without protest. "Tastes like dragon dung," he muttered.

"That good?" answered Snape. "I'll have to work on the formula."

He picked up the lamp from where he'd placed it on the bedside table and left the room without closing the door. Harry closed his eyes and fell immediatrely into slumber, never knowing that across the hall, Snape left his own bedroom door purposefully open as well.