Poppy Pomfrey was not in the habit of asking unnecessary questions.

“Any serious injuries?” was the first thing she wanted to know when Snape entered with the boy in his arms.

“I don’t believe so,” Snape said, and found himself fixed by her stern gaze.

“Are you hurt, Severus?”

“No.”

The medi-witch left it at that, directing him over to a bed. “Put him down here.”

Potter, semi-conscious as he was, seemed unwilling to let go, his hand clutching at Snape’s robes.

“Potter, you need medical treatment,” Snape said, wondering why he didn’t simply loosen the boy’s grip by force. “I have to put you down. I’m not going anywhere,” he added, as the boy seemed to need some kind of reassurance.

Potter nodded feebly and allowed himself to be laid on the examination bed. Snape sat down on a chair, watching Pomfrey as she performed her diagnostic spells, her wand moving in complicated patterns over the boy’s body.

“What happened, Severus?”

“Possessus erat,” Snape said quietly. “Spectavi eventum.”

There was one good thing about the fact that young witches and wizards were no longer required to learn Latin; it made excluding them from “adult” conversations ever so much easier. To Pomfrey’s credit, she didn’t even flinch when Snape told her he’d witnessed Harry being possessed.

“Quid?” she asked softly. Snape merely shook his head in reply. He had his suspicions as to what had possessed the boy, but that was a piece of information he’d share with Albus Dumbledore only.

A scroll of parchment appeared on the bedside table, covered in the runic letters of the ancient Healer script. Pomfrey picked it up, her eyebrows drawing together as she read.

“Well?” Snape demanded.

She was still frowning down at the parchment. “His magical core is weakened, that’s to be expected… but…”

“What?” Snape asked impatiently, only to be ignored by the medi-witch, who leaned over the boy and gently stroked his cheek with the back of her hand.

“Harry?”

Potter blinked at her, his eyes more owlish than ever.

“Harry, I need to examine you more closely. I’m going to put you into a hospital gown, if that’s alright with you?”

The boy’s eyes traveled to Snape.

“Professor Snape can wait outside if you-“

“No,” Potter whispered. “Can he… can he stay?”

“Of course, love,” Pomfrey replied, covering up her surprise. “Professor Snape can stay if you want him to.”

Snape noticed that he wasn’t even asked on the matter; not that he would have wanted to leave. Something wasn’t right; he’d seen it in Pomfrey’s face when she looked at the examination results. Admittedly, it was a surprise that Potter would want him to stay; he was not the type of adult who inspired confidence in many children.

He watched as Pomfrey waved her wand, vanishing the boy’s robes and replacing them with a mint-green hospital gown. Potter looked down at himself and drew his hands into the sleeves of the gown, as if he wanted to hide as much of himself as possible.

“Can you sit up for me, Harry?” Pomfrey asked the boy, who nodded and began to push himself into a sitting position. As the boy perched on the edge of the bed, the gown’s collar slipped to reveal a skinny shoulder and protruding collarbone. Far too thin, Snape thought. He had seen Potter’s intimate acquaintance with hunger in the boy’s mind, but to have its results displayed before him like this…

It wasn’t right.

“Here, hold this against your tongue,” Pomfrey said, conjuring an ice pack and handing it to the boy. “It’ll help with the swelling.”

Obediently, Potter brought the ice pack to his mouth, wincing slightly as it came into contact with his tongue. Snape remembered how the boy had bitten himself, making blood drip down the sides of his mouth. Potter had felt no pain in his possessed state… it, whatever it was, had almost seemed to enjoy causing injuries, damaging the body it had chosen to inhabit.

Pomfrey had stepped behind the bed and began to undo the ties on the back of the boy’s gown. Potter seemed to shrink on himself, but made no move to stop her. Snape saw him close his eyes as the fabric was tugged apart.

“Oh no,” Pomfrey said softly, staring at the boy’s back. “Oh no.”

“What is it?” Snape got up from his chair.

“Look at this, Severus.”

Snape stepped behind the bed. And stared. Whatever he had expected, this was not it.

“They were inflicted deliberately?” he asked quietly.

“Definitely,” Pomfrey replied, a hard undertone to her voice. “This kind of pattern can’t be the result of an accident. Somebody did this, and quite professionally.”

Snape had seen worse in his time, but somehow, the sight of this little boy’s back rattled him more than all the pitiful human remnants of Death Eater cruelty ever had. Voldemort’s madness was random and indifferent; this had been done methodically. And it was not the result of magic.

Scars as thick as his index finger, forming a pattern on both sides of the boy’s bony spine. They stood out like some kind of abnormal growth, raising and distorting what had once been healthy skin. Some seemed to have healed quite well, while others had left patches of twisted red skin behind, the result of an untreated infection. Beginning above the boy’s shoulder blades and ending at the small of his back, they looked as if someone had attempted to paint a grotesque version of tiger stripes on Potter’s body.

“How?” he asked, not bothering to speak Latin this time. It wasn’t as if the boy could be protected from this.

“Hot metal,” Pomfrey said. Snape had never seen the stout witch look quite so pale. “A rod of some kind, I’d say.”

“What else?” Snape asked. The examination results had covered an entire scroll of parchment, so there had to be more. And he wanted to know. Wanted to hear exactly what had been done to this boy.

Pomfrey said nothing, simply handed him the scroll and touched it with her wand, transforming the runes into English. Then she carefully tugged the hospital gown back into place, walked around the bed and sat down next to Potter. Only when the witch pulled the boy into her lap and wrapped her arms around him did Snape notice the tears on Harry’s face. The boy was crying silently, his shoulders shaking with the effort to keep all sounds inside.

“It’s alright,” she whispered, stroking his hair. “It’s alright.”

Snape looked down at the parchment in his hand. Malnutrition, assorted bruises, slightly stunted growth, loss of several teeth as an after-effect of starvation. No one had noticed, of course; eleven-year-olds came in all shapes and sizes, and their teeth were gappy more often than not before they completed their second dentition. This was exactly why they needed mandatory physicals at the beginning of term, as he’d been trying to tell the rest of the staff for years. Oh, don’t be so pedantic, Severus. He was going to write it on their tombstones one day.

So Harry was an abused child, and the last of Snape’s preconceptions about Potter’s son were swirling down the drain. Not that he was unfamiliar with the symptoms of abuse. The old pureblood families stuck to their traditions, their centuries-old code of honor and their well-used straps and canes. Many of the children had no idea that their parents’ treatment of them might be perceived as cruel. On the contrary, they often seemed surprised when Snape informed them that corporal punishment was banned at Hogwarts.

Potter had certainly suffered that variant of abuse, but beatings did not account for the scars on the boy’s back. Something else had happened to this child.

Snape put down the parchment. Pomfrey was still holding Potter on her lap, stroking his hair. The boy had buried his face in her Healer robes.

“Loqui cum eo debeo,” Snape said.

Pomfrey shook her head. “Not now, Severus. The boy needs rest. Whatever you want to ask him can wait. Puer infans est,” she added, giving him a stern look.

He’s only a little boy. Snape gave her a curt nod, surprised when Potter suddenly raised his tear-stained face.

“I’m not an infant,” he said indignantly.

Pomfrey quickly averted her head to hide her smile, and Snape raised an eyebrow at the boy.

“Infans simply means young, Potter,” he said dryly. “I’m pleased to see you have sufficiently recovered to eavesdrop on your elders.”

Pomfrey shot him a disapproving look, but Potter straightened on her lap.

“Wasn’t eavesdropping,” he muttered. “You were talking spell language so I wouldn’t understand.”

“It’s called Latin,” Snape replied. “Or lingua magica.”

“Magical language.”

“Very good, Potter,” Snape nodded, and the boy looked rather pleased with himself. “Now I suggest you do as Madame Pomfrey says and get some rest.”

Potter nodded and slipped off the medi-witch’s lap, looking around the cubicle.

“Do you need something, Harry?” Pomfrey asked.

“Can’t go back to the dorms like this,” the boy replied, waving a hand at his attire.

“You won’t be going to the dorms,” she said, taking his arm and gently steering him to a nearby hospital bed. “I’d like you to stay here for a while.”

Potter shrugged and climbed onto the bed. “Not sick,” he muttered.

“No,” Pomfrey said, “but you’ve had a very exhausting experience and need to replenish your magical energy.”

She took a small blue bottle from a shelf, uncorked it and handed it to him. “Here. This will help you get some rest.”

Potter glanced down at the bottle and up at Snape, who nodded at him. “Drink it, Potter.”

The boy obeyed, gulping down the Calming Draught in one swallow. Snape saw him grimace slightly, but as usual, Potter wasted no words complaining about the taste. Pomfrey pulled up his blanket as he lay down, brushing back a strand of black hair that had fallen into the pale face.

“Try to get some sleep,” she said, but Potter wasn’t looking at her. He was staring at Snape, an unspoken question in his eyes.

“I’ll be back later,” Snape told him, and the boy nodded, closing his eyes. Gently, Pomfrey took off his glasses and put them down on the bedside table. Straightening up, she nodded at Snape to follow her.

Pomfrey led him to her office at the back of the infirmary, closing the door behind them.

“That was kind of you, Severus,” she said.

He raised his eyebrows. “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

She gave him a knowing look. “Be that as it may, the boy clearly trusts you.”

“I doubt whether Potter trusts anyone.”

The medi-witch sat down heavily on her desk chair. “Maybe not. But there seems to be a rapport between you. If he talks to anyone about what happened to him, he’ll talk to you.”

Snape picked up a potions bottle from her desk, turning in absentmindedly in his hands.

“Somebody tortured the boy,” he said.

“Yes. But I don’t understand. I’ve never seen this kind of thing before...”

…in any of the Death Eater victims I treated, Snape silently finished her sentence.

“I don’t believe that wizards were involved,” he said, still staring at the bottle in his hands. The light that reflected off it distorted the mirror image of the room.

“Muggles can’t have…”

“You’d be surprised what Muggles can do,” Snape cut across her, abruptly setting the bottle down. “I need to go and inform the Headmaster. Call me when the boy wakes up.”

She nodded. “I’d like to keep him overnight. I don’t think it would be a good idea for him to go back to his dormitory just now.”

Thinking of Potter back in the Potions classroom, Snape nodded. “I’ll let Albus know.”

On his way to the infirmary door, he glanced over at Potter’s bed. The boy seemed to be sleeping, his head slightly tilted to one side. Snape took out his wand, holding it so that Pomfrey would not be able to see what he was doing.

“Insomnia expello,” he muttered, watching the thin red streak hit its target. No nightmares for the boy; it wasn’t too much to ask, even if it involved unauthorized spellwork performed on a student. One day he’d convince Pomfrey that Dreamless Sleep Potions were perfectly safe to be used on pre-teens.

And now for a very unpleasant conversation. Sighing, Snape quietly closed the infirmary doors behind him, heading for the Headmaster’s office.