St Paul’s hospital in Little Whinging classified as a middle-sized hospital with the smallest marginal possible, and yet it took Snape an inordinate amount of time to jog around the building from the Apparition point, searching for the entrance to the Emergency. He was angry and contrite at the same time, but the feeling of urgency had overruled his irritation from before and his only focus now was to find Harry Potter. He hoped by Merlin that Petunia had indeed driven the boy to the hospital and not, like her husband feared, dumped him on the way. What was the matter with Lily’s sister, anyway, was she insane?

Snape removed his dripping cloak in one swift movement as he entered through the sliding doors of the main entrance to the hospital. He had made sure, before leaving to Little Whinging, to change into Muggle clothing, all in black. After scanning the hall and the signboards, he headed towards what seemed to be a short-cut to the waiting room of Emergencies. 

The quick surge of relief when he spotted a characteristic mop of black hair and a pair of round glasses on a small form curled up across two seats, was replaced by a sharp intake of breath as he noticed the grey colour of the boy’s skin, the unnaturally slack mouth and the child’s shallow, erratic breathing. There was a small crowd gathered around the boy already where people murmured, incensed, among each others.

”He was left here by a woman nearly an hour ago.”

”He called her ’aunt’. He thanked her - in a weirdly sincere and relieved kind of way. But he has not spoken since.”

”I thought he was asleep, and you know how you don’t want to interfere with someone else’s child…”

”…so I alerted the receptionist and finally a nurse came and tried to wake him up. She seemed quite concerned and rushed off to fetch someone.”

”He’s so pale!”

”The aunt never came back. I heard her say that she would be right back after putting money into the parking meter.”

Snape pushed his way through the crowd and crouched beside the still form.

”Potter? Harry!” Snape shook the boy’s shoulder and Harry’s head rolled back. The fear for the child’s condition prompted Snape to be rougher than he intended. ”Do you hear me?” There was no reaction what-so-ever.

”Don’t touch him, Sir. We don’t know what’s the matter with him. It might be contagious. He clearly has a fever. The nurse should be back soon,” someone said. 

Snape only scoffed and lifted Harry up. Why was the child not inside the ward with the nurses and the doctors, being cared for? What were they waiting for? Potter was clearly unconscious and that kind of breathing must be an aggravating sign? Now, where to go? Snape looked wildly around. A door opened at the other end of the room where a nurse and a doctor appeared.

”Someone just left the child in the waiting room and…” the nurse was explaining to the young doctor when she caught sight of Snape. ”Oh, good, Sir, please bring him over here.”

Snape moved as fast as he dared with Harry in his arms towards the white-clad people and was ushered through the door and down a corridor. The doctor ran beside him, touching Potter’s forehead and the side of his neck. 

”Quick! Into the Emergency room. He’s in shock. Push the alarm button - we need more people. Call Dr Florence - I might need some help with this one,” the young doctor shouted to the nurse. 

After having put Potter down on a stretcher, Snape backed off against a wall, observing the chaotic scene. The room was soon crowded with more nurses and someone in green who said he was from the Intensive Care Unit. Potter received a plastic mug over his nose and mouth - Snape supposed it was to ease the breathing, giving him oxygen, perhaps? - and they put a wired item on his finger that blinked with a small red light. 

”I can’t manage the cannulation. There’s no way we’re going to get an access in these arms. The veins are completely collapsed,” said a nurse who had been working for a while by the crook of Potter’s left elbow, but who had abandoned it to inspect the right arm, with a negative result.

”The blood pressure is so low that it is barely measurable. If you do not succeed the venipuncture, then no one else will, Helen. We’ll have to think of another solution. The boy’s severely dehydrated. Look at his lips!”

Potter’s lips were so dry that there were crusts and dried blood on them, and his eyes looked sunken in his orbits somehow, Snape thought.

”Haven’t they given him anything to drink in this heat? And with that fever on top of it?” The nurse sounded angry.

”We imperatively need an access to rehydrate him. Bring the intraosseous set out for me, Helen, and Tom, check the jugular vein.” 

The green-clad doctor started to inspect the neck, grimacing at the disappointing result, while the blond young doctor who had met Snape in the waiting room worked on Potter’s leg. At that moment a sturdy, middle-aged woman in a white, short-sleeved, dress-like coat walked calmly into room. She glanced over the shoulders of two nurses at the patient, but did not take her hands out of the big pockets of her coat.

”What have we here, then?” she asked dryly. The young doctor looked up from his preparations and answered her. 

”A young boy - ten years old perhaps. He was left alone in the waiting room and other patients had to draw our attention to his poor condition. He’s in shock, whether from dehydration or from a sepsis, I don’t know. He has a high temperature. He needs fluids first of all to stabilise the circulation. I’m going to insert an intraosseous needle.”

The senior physician nodded and her gaze travelled to Snape.

”Who is that man?” she asked a nurse and added sternly: ”I’m sorry, Sir, only relatives are authorised to be present.”

”We’ll have to ask you to return to the waiting room, Sir. Thank you for your kind and determined assistance,”  a nurse said, approaching him, touching his arm gently to guide him out of the room. Snape tried to think quickly, but the adrenaline rushing through his body made him frustratingly empty-headed. His instincts, however, told him that he needed to stay to supervise what happened to the boy. Surely Dumbledore would not want him to leave at this stage? He spoke before his mind had formulated a distinct plan.

”B-but… I’m the father,” Snape blurted out. ”I’m Harry’s biological father,” he added more firmly. The nurse stared at him and let go of his arm. 

”Harry, is that his name?” she said a bit stiffly.

”Harry Potter. He will be twelve in a month. I had no idea he was in this state. They didn’t alert me. H-Harry lives with his aunt and uncle. They’re the ones who dumped him here.” Snape’s voice barely contained the anger he felt as he gave in to the need to vindicate himself, because he suddenly found himself the object of frosty stares and reproachful glares.

”I’m in! I’ll just draw a small syringe for culture and then we give him as much fluid we dare until his blood volume expands and you can put an intravenous access in him,” said the young doctor. 

”Well done, Victor!” said the sturdy woman doctor and Snape got the impression that the whole room drew a collective breath of relief. Snape who continued to observe the young doctor’s actions, suddenly found himself light-headed and swaying, because out of the front of Potter’s lower limb a metallic needle stuck out. It must go straight into the bone, Snape thought dimly. The young doctor was aspirating with a syringe that slowly filled with a dark red liquid.

”Give the father a chair before he swoons,” said the sturdy doctor curtly. She did not seem to miss anything going on in the room. ”Unless he wants to leave.”

Snape muttered defensively, but sat down on the pin chair that was offered to him and leant forward, letting his long hair fall in front of his face. His heart was pounding and there was a weird sound in his ears that slowly abated.

”Does your son have a medical history?” the sturdy doctor asked.

”Not that I’m aware of.” Snape frowned. Potter had told Poppy that he had never been ill before, had he not? ”A concussion when he was little - you can still see a scar on his forehead,” said Snape, thinking that they were bound to ask about that. ”And a couple of sports accidents last year, but nothing serious,” he added, thinking of Potter’s hazardous quidditch playing. He quickly decided that Harry’s near death experience with Quirrel and Voldemort a few weeks ago could not be explained in Muggle terms and should not be of importance in this case.

”I suppose we need to do a lumbar puncture to rule out meningitis?” the young doctor said interrogatively to his senior colleague. ”His neck does not appear very stiff to me, but it can be tricky.” 

Snape frowned.

”It’s an appendicitis. He needs surgery,” he blurted out. The sturdy woman raised an eyebrow.

”Are you a doctor, Sir? How would you know?”

”No, I’m not, but Po… he… Harry wrote to me yesterday. I received the letter today. That’s why I came to their house tonight. I immediately thought of an appendicitis when I read the description of his symptoms.”

”Which were?”

Snape closed his eyes to remember. He had not read that note very thoroughly. 

”Loss of appetite, stomach ache that worsened on moving or straightening up,” he said. 

”Dr Florence!” the young doctor called. ”He’s right. The boy has clear signs of a peritonitis. The abdomen is board-like. I’m sorry we missed it at first. We were thinking more in the line of infection. We need to call a surgeon.”

”They won’t want to operate until he’s stabilised. Continue with the fluid infusions and start him on antibiotics. Let’s move him to the Intensive Care Unit.”

*** 

Five hours later, at two o’clock am, in the Intensive Care Unit, Snape was growing impatient. The doctors had not yet reached a decision whether or not to operate Potter, nor when to do so. The surgery must be of paramount importance, must it not? The sooner the better. How else was the boy supposed to heal? The surgery was the whole point of the procedure, was it not? 

Where Snape had started off quiet and humble, shocked and subdued by Potter’s - Harry’s - threatening condition, he had become more and more grumpy towards the nurses who did not bring him any answers to his questions. The only thing that happened was that Potter - Harry - he must remember to use the boy’s first name if he wanted to pose as his father - Harry, then, had been connected to even more wires and that additional plastic tubes had been introduced into his body. That was a sickening practise that Snape found most difficult to tolerate. He was convinced that a magical healer would never resort to such barbaric procedures. If he did not know beforehand that the appendicitis rite must depend only on Muggle health care, he would have protested and ripped those things out long ago. It would have been so much better if Poppy had attended to Potter herself, Snape thought bitterly. Snape, who had never been to a Muggle hospital since he had his own appendix removed at the age of six - which he did not remember much of - felt lost, appalled and helpless at once.

One long tube had been introduced through Harry’s nose and down into the stomach to drain the gastric juice that kept being produced, but did not transport away, because the entire bowel system was in a paralysis from the inflammation in the abdomen and the acid fluid that accumulated in the ventricle, constituted a risk for vomiting and aspirating into the lungs, a red-headed nurse explained to Snape. She was okay, that one, Snape reluctantly admitted - she actually took her time to speak to him. Another plastic tube was draining the urinary bladder - Snape had thankfully been sent out of the room when they put it in place. He was equally grateful for the fact that the needle in the leg had been removed and replaced by a cannula entering a vessel at the crook of Harry’s neck. 

Snape had made repeated demands to speak to a surgeon. Instead, a young, taciturn female doctor - the radiologist on duty, the red-haired nurse whispered in Snape’s ear - had turned up with a grotesque, huge machine where blurred black-and-white images floated on a screen when the concentrated young woman scanned Harry’s abdomen with an ultrasound giver. The red-haired nurse explained the technique to Snape, because the young doctor did not betray anything, neither with words, nor facial expressions. ”I will report the result to the surgeon,” she said curtly before she left Snape exasperated. 

Subsequent to the ultrasound examination, he started to pace back and fro by Harry’s bed, partly to give an outlet to his frustration, partly in order to keep himself awake. He realised that it would not be appropriate to start yelling, because there were other patients in the room - four of them counting Harry - and Snape did not want to risk being expelled from the ward. He realised that the personnel let him stay out of pure good will, because whether he was the biological father or not, it must be clear to them that he was not the boy’s legal guardian. Instead of yelling, as soon as a nurse came within earshot, Snape hissed at him or her, asking when the surgeon was expected. 

”The surgeon is occupied by an emergency operation,” was the invariable answer. Well, that was surprising, Snape thought sarcastically and exasperated. What about Po- Harry, then? If his state was not an emergency, then what was? Why did they not call in another surgeon if the first one was occupied? They could not let people die while waiting for their turn, could they now? 

Snape felt a shiver of dread travel down his spine. What if the boy died? What if this was some particularly inept Muggle hospital? Maybe he was supposed to pay, to bribe someone to make things happen? He did not know of Muggle practises. Maybe he should demand that Potter was taken to another hospital? Or maybe he should intervene magically in some way? What would Albus say if he let Harry die? What would the Ministry say, with him being on his tenth year of probation? Merlin, what would Lily have said, if she knew that the son she sacrificed her life for was to succumb during his appendicitis rite due to her sister’s malice, to Muggle incompetence and to Severus Snape’s indecision? Snape made up his mind: If that surgeon did not turn up within five minutes, he would walk into the operation room and fetch him forcibly. Dare they try to prevent him, Snape thought desperately.

Luckily for everybody involved, the surgeon did arrive within those five minutes. It was a fine-boned, thin man of Snape’s age with a sympathetic face, although wrought by tiredness. The surgeon spoke quietly to the red-haired nurse who showed him the charts. She also gestured at Snape, and the surgeon lifted his eyes to scrutinise the stiff, black figure. Snape did not know if he succeeded in maintaining the inscrutable facade he tried to impose on himself. He had no wish to antagonise the surgeon, but it was difficult to hide the boiling impatience inside him. Subsequent to the quick scrutiny, the surgeon walked up to Harry and palpated the abdomen. The examination was brief, subsequent to which the surgeon drew up a chair for himself and gestured for Snape to sit down. 

”The result of the ultrasound supports the diagnosis of an inflamed and  ruptured appendix.” The surgeon spoke in a quiet, calm voice. ”However, your son was severely dehydrated on arriving at the hospital, also suffering from the effects of the spread infection in the abdomen. He is only starting to stabilise due to fluid infusions and to antibiotic treatment. He is in no condition to endure surgery at the moment.”

Snape made an irritated gesture and opened his mouth to speak. 

”Hear me out,” the surgeon interrupted calmly. ”It is an advantage to have the antibiotic treatment calm the infection before opening him up.”

Snape paled at the crude implication of the words.

”In some instances, with a ruptured appendix like this, it might even be an alternative to abstain from surgery altogether and only go with the antibiotic treatment. It will be longer to heal, but it might be the better alternative because surgery might contribute to spread the infection further,” continued the surgeon.

”That’s not an alternative for Harry,” Snape responded reflexively. ”He must have the surgery.” Why, if they did not operate, that would leave Potter a squib! That was not a satisfying alternative! What were they thinking of? He felt his anger mount again. The surgeon made a defensive gesture.

”I’m not saying that we will choose to abstain from surgery in your son’s case. I only want to point out to you that your son is currently under treatment and that there is no risk in waiting a few hours or a day, quite on the contrary.” His gaze bore calmly through Snape who frowned. 

”Will you operate tomorrow then? I want you to promise me that you will,” said Snape.

”You must leave the medical decisions with us, Sir. We will do what is best for your son.”

”You must remove his appendix.”

”It’s not much left of it as it is. The ultrasound shows that it is only a big inflammatory mass. You waited too long to come.” 

”I did not… I did as fast as I could…” Snape whispered, his voice suddenly faltering. Could he have come sooner? Had he loitered, in his irritation? But he needed to close Hogwarts, did he not? Should he have left the castle unprotected to check on Harry helter-skelter? And what did the doctor mean that there was not much left of the appendix to remove? What implications would that have on the magical side? Oh, if only Albus and Poppy were here. He must have looked lost, because the surgeon’s expression softened and he said:

”I did not mean to put the blame on you, Sir. I was told that it was the boy’s aunt who abandoned him. You are clearly concerned. I simply ask you to have confidence in us. I believe that you are right and that we will indeed operate within the next few days, because the ultrasound showed the beginnings of an abscess - which is proof that this has been going on for far too long, and we usually need to drain those.” 

Snape looked puzzled, so the surgeon explained:

”A pool of infected fluid, pus, forms and we need to put a plastic tube inside it to drain the infection away.”

Snape paled again. Another tube, inside the abdomen this time. 

”And you leave it there for how long?” he asked cautiously.

”As long as necessary, usually for a few days,” the surgeon answered. ”But we are moving ahead of events. We will repeat an ultrasound tomorrow morning and decide what to do. Until then, please be patient.” 

***

Intensive care specialist nurse Laura was supposed to leave her shift in ten minutes, but she was aware that so would not be the case. The night had been long and tumultuous, especially with the child arriving in the evening. It was not until early morning that he had been reasonably stabilised regarding fluid balance and circulation. The hard work had been to calm the father, though. It was natural for parents to go mad when their children were ill, Nurse Laura reminded herself. She actually preferred boiling anger to emotional withdrawal or hysterical breakdowns, as it often translated in true concern for the child.

The black-clad man had a particularly menacing countenance and several of her colleagues had taken an instinctual dislike against him and were afraid of him. Nurse Laura had interpreted his behaviour as fear for the child, though, and endeavoured to explain things to him, to which he responded well, only to immediately react to something else. He was clearly not used to hospitals and despite the efforts to hide his ignorance and his bewilderment behind that stern air, Nurse Laura saw through his disguise and recognised the typical parental reaction of anger and desperation. She had to acknowledge that the man had behaved within limits, nearly decently, but she had observed how close he had been to snap on several occasions. It was not until the surgeon had spoken to him that he had finally resigned to sit down in an armchair by his son’s bed and slumbered off a bit.

When Nurse Laura lifted her head from the chart where she was scribbling down her documentation and cast a glance towards the child’s bed, she let out a small exclamation. The boy was awake! The colleagues who had relayed her were both occupied with the fellow patients and the child was completely quiet. Sister Laura rose and approached. The child - Harry was his name, she reminded herself - Harry’s eyes were riveted on the sleeping, black-haired man whose head was tilted to the side in an uncomfortable position. They tore away to meet hers as she stepped up to the bed. 

”He came,” the boy whispered. Sister Laura felt a pang of tenderness, mixed with sadness when perceiving the incredulity in the child’s voice. She had deduced so much from tonight that the boy did not live with his father and that they might not even see much of each others. 

”Your father has been very worried about you. He stayed up most part of the night,” she said.

The child’s green eyes widened further before they fluttered closed and he drifted off in unconsciousness again.

***

It was not until noon the next day that Snape was approached by an elderly nurse who told him that the surgeons had decided to operate on Harry in the late afternoon. Snape received the news with a sigh of relief and muttered: ”Not a minute too early.”

”He had to be stabilised first,” the nurse said noncommittally. ”Sir, please, I need some information for the records. You understand that given the circumstances in which the boy was admitted to the hospital, we need to file a report to the social services on suspicion that he is not adequately taken care of by his legal guardians. We have tried to contact Mr and Mrs Dursley by phone, both last night and this morning, but we have not succeeded. Please tell me, how come that Harry lives with his aunt and uncle?” 

Snape tried to think quickly. The Muggle authorities were going to get involved, that was inevitable. What to say, then? Keep as close to the truth as possible - that was what his year of spying for Dumbledore on Voldemort during the end of the war had taught him. The fact that Snape had only slept a few hours in combination with the relief that the Muggles had finally decided in favour of an operation, probably made Snape more outspoken than had he been his usual guarded self.

”His mother and I…” Snape started and drew a deep breath. ”… were childhood friends. It changed into romantic feelings… on my behalf at least. Lily… Lily was probably only… er… experimenting. We were both very young when she got pregnant. For different reasons she… she did not want me to be involved with the child. She met someone else that she married. Unfortunately they both died in a car crash when Harry was only a year old. I was already resigned to giving up on him… and there were other things… I might as well tell you: I was on probation at that time and no one would have given me custody of the child, so I never claimed him and he was placed with his aunt and uncle.”

The nurse scribbled notes and gave him gentle, non-condemning glances that prompted him to continue.

”I have not seen him until last year when he started a school which brought him closer to where I live. I’m afraid we don’t know each other particularly well. I had no idea that he was so badly treated by Lily’s relatives.” 

The nurse was suddenly called away to an emergency with another patient. She gave Snape a hurried apology and added: ”Harry just woke up. See if you can keep him awake for a little longer. We need to explain to him what’s going to happen.”

Snape turned around to meet feverish green eyes riveted on him, in a grave face that, without the glasses, did not look so much like James Potter as Snape had thought all year long. The boy looked very small in the big bed, with his bared thin chest overlaid with wires and the plastic tube sorting out of his nostril and fastened with tape against his cheek. There was a shocked questioning in the gaze Harry gave him and Snape cursed himself silently for not being more careful. He leant down towards the child and in his embarrassment his whisper came out rather waspishly.

”You realise that I made that story up, don’t you, Potter? It was a show because in Muggle hospitals, they only allow relatives to stay with a child. Therefore I’m pretending to be, not your teacher, but your father. You need to play along or they will chuck me out of here.” Snape paused to think that maybe Harry did, after all, not care for the assistance of his least favourite teacher. Well - Snape shuffled the objection aside - that did not matter, because Harry needed an adult by his side and apparently there was no one else at the moment. Snape continued in a softer tone of voice. ”I will call you Harry and you might call me… Severus… We’re not very close as father and son after all, not even as the Muggles are concerned. I never claimed my legal right to you - my fictive legal right that is. Do you understand?” Snape felt as if he had entangled things further, but Harry turned his head away, with slightly heightened colour on his cheeks and nodded. 

”Are they going to operate - to cut into my stomach with a knife?” whispered Harry after a pause. Snape suddenly felt stupid for being so defensive and clumsy, going on about their disguise when there was clearly more serious things preoccupying Harry. He drew his chair closer to the bedside and sat back down.

”The removal of the appendix is an operation that every wizard and witch has to submit to. Everyone goes through it, so it’s perfectly natural, as Madam Pomfrey wrote to you, to catch the disease when you are a wizard,” Snape stated.

”Everyone? Ron and Hermione too?” asked Harry. Snape rolled his eyes. Did Potter imagine that he learnt the medical history of his pupils by heart? But he forced himself to answer patiently.

”I suppose so. Twelve is the upper limit of age. Most magical children have their appendicitis earlier in childhood.”

”Oh, I’m sorry, I’m having it so late,” said Harry weakly. Snape looked confused for a moment.

”There is nothing to apologise about,” he said finally with a streak of irritation. ”Those kind of things are not within your control. It’s about magical maturation and there’s nothing saying that it is preferable to have it early or late on in life.”

”And it always turns out okay?” asked Harry carefully. Snape hesitated for a fraction of a second and Harry immediately turned apprehensive. Merlin, the boy was perceptive, Snape thought. 

”I have not heard of any cases gone wrong among my acquaintance,” Snape hastened to say stiffly, thinking that as his acquaintance was minuscule that did not say much, but Harry did not know that. ”You have some complications, though, I won’t lie to you… due to your late arrival to the hospital…”

”I’m sorry I didn’t…”

”Stop being sorry for what you had no means to influence, Po- Harry!” Snape exclaimed loudly, upset by the eleven-year-old’s absurd propensity towards self-reproach. ”You did what you could, writing to Hogwarts. The complications arose because your aunt did not monitor or care for you properly!” 

”Aunt Petunia…” Harry’s eyes filled with tears as he choked on the words and drew a shuddering breath, which elicited a wince of pain. Snape immediately looked alarmed and was on the point of calling a nurse when Harry went on. ”First Aunt Petunia refused all day to take me to a doctor,” Harry whispered. ”Then she changed her mind when Uncle Vernon got scared. But she didn’t say anything during the ride in the car and I had no idea where she was driving me. I didn’t even know that she had a driving li-license. When at last we arrived and I realised that we were at a ho-hospital, I was so grateful. I thanked her, but she only sneered at me, tore away and hissed at me not to p-pull any tricks.”

”And she left you alone in an anonymous waiting-room without notifying anyone,” Snape spat angrily. He drew a deep breath to calm himself. ”You should not think about that right now. First thing first. You need to have your surgery and recover.”

”Are those complications you told me about bad?” asked Harry in a small voice. Snape opened his mouth and shut it again to think. He realised that Harry needed to be reassured, yet he had no idea what to say to him. Again he opted for keeping as close to the truth as possible.

”The Muggle doctors say that it will be a little longer and more complicated to perform the surgery because of the complications, but I have not perceived any doubts in their demeanour as to whether you will survive or not… Not since last night when you arrived, at which point… er… I must say there was some alarm.” Snape swallowed at the memory of the unconscious Potter surrounded by desperately busy doctors. ”So I am confident that you will survive the surgery. They will, however, have to put… er… one of these… er… plastic tubes… er… into your abdomen… and…” Snape was so uncomfortable with speaking about the abscess drain that the surgeon had explained about, that he felt downright dizzy. The situation was saved by the elderly nurse who approached the bed. 

”Harry, really,” she said with mild reproach, ”you have to tell us directly that you are in pain. Your heart is ticking very fast and you are tense and sweating - you are obviously in pain and yet you say nothing.”

Snape fidgeted and flew up from his chair, but started to sway so he sat down again.

”Maybe I spoke too crudely when I tried to explain about the surgery,” he said contritely. ”I might have scared him.” Harry looked with surprise at Snape who seemed genuinely remorseful.

”He has a generalised peritonitis - that hurts, and his last dose of morphine is waning. Don’t put unnecessary blame on yourself,” the nurse corrected Snape. ”I’m simply going to give him a new dose. And you, Sir, should get something to eat. If you don’t want to leave the room, I can bring you some sandwiches. All you need is to ask for it, you know?” She arched an eyebrow and disappeared. 

Instead of continuing to explain about the plastic tubes, Snape went on in a whispering tone to tell Harry about the magical implications from the removal of the appendix. He made it sound like a highly desirable event, one to celebrate in every wizard’s home and Harry listened raptly. 

”It might liberate a substantial amount of magical energy once you’ve healed,” concluded Snape. ”So it will be interesting during your second year at Hogwarts to observe if any of that will rub off on your Potions work, for example.” Snape spoke dryly, but Harry who was starting to drift off into sleep again due to the effect of the morphine, smiled.

”Well done!” the nurse whispered to Snape as she approached to observe the sleeping Harry.

Snape sighed. He did not like to deceive. But he had not lied, he tried to tell himself, simply glossed it over a bit. In the best case scenario, Harry would have his magical powers boosted. In the worst case… In the worst case… would Harry become a squib? After suffering all this? That would be cruel, reflected Snape. He put his head in his hands. He simply did not know anything about healing matters. He wished Albus was here. Or Poppy for that matter. He had notified both of them, but had received no answer yet. 

***

The surgery did go well, although it was the longest hours in Snape’s life. He had no explanation as to why he wandered the corridors outside the operation ward. There was nothing he could do. He was not allowed inside and they had explained to him that it would take some time, what with the preparations and all. He should take the opportunity to rest, to clean up and eat a proper meal. He might even have the time to Apparate back and fro to Spinners End, while Harry had the surgery. Snape could not explain why he could not leave, why he seemed to be unable to tear away from the naked, impersonal hospital corridors. But it felt utterly impossible to take one step outside that corridor. He could not even sit for long. Laura, the red-haired nurse from the previous night was back on duty, because the operation had been delayed into the evening, and she eyed Snape with curiosity, approaching him a few times. She launched him short, humorous, peppery remarks that had the merit of disconcerting and distracting him for short intervals of time and so he got by until he could draw a sigh of relief at the sight of a still sleeping, but breathing and alive Harry Potter and sit down by his side for another night’s vigil.