“Harry, Harry!”

Harry opened his eyes to a commotion of noise. He felt the cold marble floor beneath him and blinked a few times as his eyes tried to focus. He could make out Hermione and Ron’s faces popping into his line of sight, and there was a swarm of people around him. He started to sit up.

“Harry, are you okay?”

“Take it easy, Harry!”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Harry said with a wave of his hand, although he wasn’t sure he was fine at the moment. Wasn’t he just talking to Dumbledore? Shouldn’t he be dead? Images of King’s Cross Station bathed in foggy white came to his memory – the last horcrux, ancient magic, the doe patronus. Then Dumbledore’s final words sprung to his mind.

“Snape! Where is he?” Harry leapt to his feet.

“Woah, take it easy,” Remus said, holding Harry’s arm to steady him.

“Dumbledore said not to use magic!” Harry explained.

“Dumbledore?” various voices asked. 

“Harry, what are you on about?” Ron said, sounding concerned.

“Maybe the curse affected his memory,” someone whispered.

Looking at the crowd of faces with expressions ranging from incredulity to concern, he tried to clarify. “I saw him, when I—diedorwhatever.”

“When you—Harry, what happened? You were hit by the killing curse while Snape's patronus—”

“The boy who lived – again!” exclaimed a voice. The crowd erupted in cheers. Harry scrunched his eyebrows.

“Harry, listen, everything’s alright now. Voldemort’s gone! You beat him, Harry!” Hermione grabbed Harry’s shoulders in excitement. “The war’s over. We won!” Other voices cheered and folks patted Harry on the back. Someone tousled his hair.

Harry half-registered what was going on while struggling to see over everyone’s heads. “I just saw Dumbledore. We’ve got to help Snape.” Harry looked frantically around the crowd. “Where is he?” Harry couldn’t see anything but worried faces looking at him. He tuned out the voices as he pushed through the crowd and looked around the Great Hall, but there was no sign of Snape.

“Over here!” a voice sounding far away shouted.

Harry pushed back through the crowd toward the voice, coming to a halt when he saw Remus and Professor McGonagall crouching over Snape’s still form crumpled against the wall. Harry didn’t know why his heart seemed to stop as he approached the professor; they had been enemies since Harry’s first day at school. No, that wasn’t true, Harry knew. He knew there was something more to the story, though he didn’t know what, and by the way Snape looked crumpled on the floor, cast in the grey light of dawn shining through the window, he feared he may never find out.

“Severus…” Professor McGonagall was leaned over Snape’s face, which was so flushed it looked sunburned. Harry kneeled by Snape’s other side. He didn’t think he’d ever seen so much color on Snape’s face, but it didn’t look right at all.

With a clenched stomach, Harry's eyes shot toward Snape's arm, expecting to see it lying over a pool of blood. However it was dry and yet, it was not wrapped in cloth or anything. Harry felt an arm on his shoulder and turned to see Hermione kneeling beside him. 

"Cauterized," she explained. Of course, she could assess the situation so quickly. Harry thought back to the blazing white sword Voldemort brought down on Snape's arm. With a grimace he thought of how hot it must've been.

A moan broke his thoughts.

“Severus!” Professor McGonagall sounded relieved, resting her hand on his chest. It was strange to see her comfort him when just a few hours ago she was driving him from the castle. “Hang on, Poppy’s here.” 

Harry saw Madam Pomfrey rushing over with her wand.

“No!” Harry put his hand out to stop her. “Dumbledore said not to use magic.”

Madame Pomfrey gave him an appraising look. “I’ll check out that head of yours in a minute, Mr. Potter, but let me examine Snape, first.”

She kneeled by Snape’s side to perform a diagnostic spell, when Snape let out another moan. His lips moved as if to speak, but no sound came out.

“No magic, I mean it!” Harry reached to grab the wand from Madam Pomfrey, who looked stunned.

“Why on earth not, Mr. Potter?”

“I—I don’t know…but Dumbledore was adamant. He said we have to wait, to wait for the curse to wear off, I guess.”

“What curse?” Madame Pomfrey asked.

“That curse…” Mr. Weasley had arrived and jumped in the conversation. “Remember right before You-Know-Who…attacked Harry?”

“That’s right,” Professor McGonagall said, “Voldemort cast that peculiar spell on Professor Snape.”

“The one that failed?” Remus chimed in.

“Oh I don’t know if it failed—look at him.” McGonagall cast a worried look at Snape, and if anything had made Harry concerned for Snape it was seeing the normally composed Deputy Headmistress wearing an expression of such anxiety.

“Well if I can’t even cast a simple diagnostic spell, how am I supposed to heal whatever it is - he looks bloody terrible!” Madam Pomfrey really must have been at wits end for Harry couldn’t ever recall a bad word leaving her mouth. The mediwitch turned to Snape.

“Severus, can you speak? Can you tell us about that curse Voldemort used?”   

Severus’ black eyes seemed unable to focus as he struggled to speak. Madame Pomfrey reached and touched his cheek, but withdrew her hand rapidly. “He’s burning up!” She hesitantly touched his face again with the side backs of her fingers.

McGonagall put her hand on Snape’s forehead, only to withdraw it just as quickly. “Dear Merlin.”

Apparently deciding to believe Harry, Madame Pomfrey asked him, “Mr. Potter, can’t I perform a simple temperature spell?”  Harry was about to respond, but Snape started moving his head back and forth.

“I take that as a no,” Madame Pomfrey said. “Alright, we must get his temperature down somehow.”

“We’ll have to do it the Muggle way,” Mr. Weasley said.

“Which is?” Professor McGonagall raised an eyebrow.

“We may not have much time…” Madame Pomfrey said, hinting that this wasn’t time for needlessly indulging one’s Muggle curiosity.

Mr. Weasly stood up, walked a few strides away and conjured a bathtub with ice water.

Professor McGonagall looked impressed. “Not a bad idea, Arthur. We should remove his outer robes and shirt in case were not able to cast a drying spell. Who knows how long it’ll take the curse to wear off.

“Severus, can you talk to us? We need to know about that spell.” But Snape just swayed his head, seemingly too delirious to say anything coherent.

The staff set to the painstaking task of unbuttoning Snape’s robes. Harry was transfixed on the suffering man who was such a mystery. Dumbledore had left him with little explanation as to why Snape seemed to turn from evil to good overnight. And was it really overnight or had he been on their side for longer? Dumbledore had been elusive about the circumstances regarding his own death, but Harry couldn’t seem to find another perspective on it. Snape killed Dumbledore. Of course, Harry’s darkest secret was that he himself had weakened Dumbledore nearly to death by feeding him that poison on their horcrux hunt. And truthefully, Harry had hated himself as much as Snape for that. If only…

“Wait!” Hermione was blocking the bathtub from Remus and Mr. Weasley, who were lifting Snape over. Harry was shocked to see how battered Snape torso looked. But those were all old scars, nothing from tonight. Did all those scars come from Voldemort?

“Ms. Granger, step aside! We need to lower Professor Snape’s temparature now!”

Hermione held her arm out to stall them as she conjured a cup and then scooped up some of the ice water. She then turned to Snape and poured it over his arm.

“Aaaah!” There was a gurgled cry as steam rose from Snape’s arm and he attempted a glare.

“We should raise the water to room temperature first,” Hermione explained, “Otherwise he could go into shock.”

Nods of understanding followed and Remus aimed his wand at the tub to raise the temperature. They lifted Snape into the bath and as soon as his body hit, the water sizzled and smoked nonetheless. Snape groaned, his head lobbing from side to side. McGonagall was biting her lip as Madam Pomfrey and Remus held his shoulders.

“Hang in there, Severus,” Remus said, “You’re going to be alright.” But he couldn’t seem to get the knot out of his forehead.

For some reason Harry felt uncomfortable watching the scene and diverted his gaze. He spotted the black robes piled on the ground.  Having been turned inside out, an inner pocket was visible and something paper-like sticking out of it caught Harry’s eye. He leaned forward and reached his hand toward it.

“Harry.” Hermione stood over him with arms akimbo. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Harry started to look guilty, but Ron joined him at his other side.

“C’mon, man!” Ron put his hand on Harry’s back. “This might be our only chance to uncover the truth about the man behind the robes of mystery! I swear he hasn’t taken these off since first year—”

“Ron!”

Harry grinned. He could always count on Ron to support his curiosity. Hermione shook her head but didn’t intervene.

Harry’s hand hovered over the paper for a moment before grabbing it. Feeling it in his hand, he realized it wasn’t paper, but a photograph. Harry flipped it over and was stunned by the image.

“Harry…isn’t that—?”

Eyes wide with wonder, Harry said, “I think so.”