“Aye, Harry, are ye ready ta begin?”

 Harry looked between Healer Covey, who stood over him on one side of the bed, and Snape, who sat in a chair on the other side. Tentatively, he nodded. They were in a private room at the back of the healing ward. Madam Pomfrey had stepped out for a just a moment to check on a first year who had fallen off his broom and sprained his wrist.

“I’m gonna start with yer core, Harry, aye? I can go as slow as ye need. Healin’ is a process, an’ at any time ye need ta stop, ye just let us know, aye?”

Harry nodded.

“Would ye like any of yer friends ta be here with ye?”

“No,” Harry replied. He didn’t know why, but he hadn’t felt like telling Ron and Hermione what was happening. It was one thing to tell them about having his cursed hand healed, and he knew that they knew that the Dursleys didn’t treat him very well, but even they didn’t know how bad it had truly been. It shamed him to admit it to himself, much less his friends. He hoped he could continue to keep his silence.

Harry also hoped that he wouldn’t need Snape to Occlude for him. It wasn’t a pleasant thought. He didn’t relish Snape digging through his mind, seeing his worst memories. And although Snape had been relatively decent to him—for Snape anyway—that didn’t mean he wanted to hand him more ammunition should the man return to his old ways.

Harry sighed in relief when Snape began perusing a potions journal. He was sure the professor didn’t want to be here anymore than Harry wanted him here.

Madam Pomfrey bustled back in, a little harried, but ready to begin. Snape looked up only briefly. Healer Covey signaled for everyone to take their places.

“Here we go, laddie. Just try an’ relax, aye?” Healer Covey instructed, shaking back the sleeves of her robe.

Harry tensed, but when Healer Covey’s hands touched him, and her magic seeped inside, calming and reassuring, he relaxed. He concentrated on the feel of her magic. It felt like warm tendrils swirling beneath his skin. It was comforting and somehow familiar, even if he’d never felt anything like it before.

He felt himself becoming drowsy as the warmth continued to spread through him. He drifted freely, in the space between thoughts. Murky images floated by, sliding in and out of focus, but nothing stayed for long. Not even long enough to recognize, really. He supposed they were bits and pieces of memories, but they didn’t disturb the calm that had come over him as Healer Covey’s magic soothed him. If this was what healing was like, he didn’t mind it one bit.

He barely noticed the dark fog that stole in, little by little. It was so slow and incremental, that he hadn’t even recognized it was taking over. It wasn’t until he felt a sharp jagged twinge deep inside that it he realized he was in trouble. Things were no longer gray and misty, but black and ugly.

Harry bit back a cry as the deep twinge became a full-on deluge of agony. It was like his whole body was on fire. Unable to suppress it any longer, he groaned loudly, writhing away from the scorching pain, fighting against the prongs of torture that claimed him.

In the distance, he heard disjointed commands directed elsewhere, while calming words were spoken to him, but they barely scratched the surface of his consciousness. He curled into himself, biting his lip to suppress the screams trying to break free.

Potion bottles were pressed to his lips as Madam Pomfrey’s voice said things like “anti-inflammatory” and “calming” and “pain”.

He swallowed them reflexively, willing himself not to vomit them back up.

A keen of despair broke free as the blackness shifted from an indistinct mass into the form of his uncle, face bulbous and purple with rage, coming at him with his fists raised, mouth open and shouting. The audio of the reel seemed to have been turned off, though, as Harry could hear no words. Still, he could see the corded muscles in his uncle’s neck as the man’s mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water.

“NO!” he screamed as fists slammed into him, pummeling him relentlessly. When his small body fell to the floor, his uncle had picked him up, and thrown him into the wall. Harry felt his head hit, hard, and moaned in pain. Then he was on the ground again and his uncle was kicking him, over and over and over, anywhere his steel-toed boot could reach—face, head, arms, legs, back. Harry felt blood drooling out of his mouth and dripping from his nose as everything faded to black, taking the desolate and dead feelings inside of him with it.

On the hospital bed, Harry wrapped his arms tightly around legs, curled into a ball as he was, and wept. He couldn’t help it. He buried his face in the mattress, vaguely aware that he wasn’t alone. He was vaguely aware of Healer Covey’s calming words, her magic soothing now as she healed him and worked him through the process.

Then a deep melodic voice broke into his thoughts then. Snape’s voice.

“How old are you?”

Unable to get words out without sobbing aloud, he pulled one arm away from himself and held up four fingers.

Then, the mist shifted and the blackness started to return. Harry tensed, expecting the worst. And he wasn’t disappointed. This time his body stretched out of its own accord, his limbs rigid, a panicked shout escaping his mouth. Uncle Vernon had him tied to a four poster bed. Harry’s ankles and wrists were raw as he fought against the restraints, watching in terror as Vernon heated metal kitchen utensils over an open flame.

“No,” Harry begged, “Please, no. PLEASE!”

Vernon’s grin was malicious as he held the red-hot instrument over Harry’s bare skin. Harry shrieked in fear as he tried to curl away from the impending torture. Sweat beaded his forehead, chest, and back, and ran down his sides. And then Vernon lowered the instrument, burning Harry’s skin.

Harry shrieked and writhed against the torture, tears leaking from his eyes. In the mist, he saw Aunt Petunia, standing in the doorway, her arms crossed, watching the proceedings. Uncle Vernon looked to her, nodding once, and then looked Harry directly in the eyes.

Although there was no sound, Harry could read the man’s lips: There’s no such thing as magic.

Then hot metal singed his skin again and screams tore from Harry’s throat as he thrashed helplessly at his bonds.

“LOOK AT ME.”

The hard edge of command in this new, deep voice drew Harry’s attention.

A man was now standing beside him. A black-clothed man with a long nose and a curtain of dark, greasy hair. An expression that was a cross between rage and disgust sat firmly on his features.

In this place of miserable memories, Snape put his hand on Harry’s forehead, and gazed into Harry’s pain-riddled eyes.

Instantly, the agony lessened as it was shoved to the back of Harry’s mind, a pinprick relegated to distance recesses as Harry continued to gaze into the almost completely back irises of Professor Snape.

The grotesque scene continued with his uncle trying to burn the magic out of him and his aunt observing in the background, but the pain no longer tortured him.

Harry’s breathing eased, his screams ceased, and he sunk back into the mattress in the infirmary, drifting uneasily into the restless sleep of shattered dreams.

“I will keep an eye on him,” Madam Pomfrey said. “You two get some rest. Between the dreamless sleep and the recovering his body needs to do, he will be out cold for at least the next 12 to 14 hours.

Snape nodded curtly and made to turn on his heal to leave when he glanced back at Covey. She looked exhausted, yes, but she also looked troubled, and so very young.

“Would you like to accompany me in a night-cap?” Snape found himself asking.

“Aye,” Covey said, “I would.”

Snape and Covey walked to his quarters in silence. He hadn’t stepped in to Occlude initially, preferring to let Potter handle it on his own if he could. But when the second memory surfaced and Potter couldn’t stop screaming, as if he was suffering the Cruciatius curse, Snape decided it was time.

What he saw had made his blood run cold. While he hadn’t known the man Petunia had married, he should have known better than to trust Petunia; he knew Lily’s sister was jealous and vindictive. Why he’d ever thought Harry’d been spoiled in that house now defied reason.

He felt sick and shaken by what they had done to the child. Snape knew the horrific images wouldn’t leave him anytime soon. No wonder Potter had suppressed them.

Finally, they reached Snape’s quarters. Covey looked dead on her feet. It surprised him to see her that drained, and he realized that she must have been hiding it in the infirmary.

“Come,” he instructed, taking her arm and leading her to his sitting room.

“Sit,” he instructed as he lowered her onto his leather sofa. He took the chair opposite, his own fatigue temporarily forgotten. Leaning forward, hands clasped between his knees, he inquired: “Are you alright?”

“Aye,” she said wearily. “Sometimes, healin’ takes a lot outta me. It isna usually like this, though. But he’s older than most I treat, aye? An’ he’s been through so much.”

“Indeed,” Snape murmured. He hesitated a moment before asking, “Could you see everything I saw?”

“Nay,” Covey said. “I donna get the images. Just the feelin’s. An’ the intensity o’ them. An’ when it is tied up with blocked memories, tis much harder on me, because when healin’ releases the memories, the intensity of the feelin’s that come with ‘em can be overpowerin’.”

“I apologize,” Snape murmured.

“Apologize?” Covey asked quizzically. “Fer what?”

“I should have done a better job protecting him,” Snape said, staring at the floor.

“Ah Sevvie, ye canna blame yerself. Ye couldna known.”

Snape met Covey’s eyes and, in a hard voice, forced out the words: “Trust me when I say that I made things worse for the boy.”

Covey looked startled at his outburst.

Good, Snape thought. She shouldn’t delude herself into thinking he was some sort of saint. Far from it. He got to his feet and turned away.

Anger and impotence coursed through him at his own failings. Why hadn’t he seen the boy’s suffering? But he knew why. He’d been too busy reliving his school years through Potter, punishing the boy for the sins of the father. He’d been blinded by his own prejudices.

“Sevvie,” Covey cooed, sympathy coloring her voice as she put a hand on his arm.

Snape shook her off. He didn’t deserve her comfort. “Leave it,” he said roughly.

Straightening his shoulders, he muttered, “You must be starving. Let me floo the house-elves for dinner. In the meantime, what can I get you to drink?”

Covey wavered for a moment but then assented to the change in subject. Seating herself back on the couch, she said, “Red wine would be lovely, aye? Or bourbon. Either one.”

“Bourbon it is,” Snape said. “I will be back in a moment.”

Snape went to his small kitchen to pour two generous glasses of the fortifying liquor, then summoned a house elf to request dinner for two in his quarters. When he returned to the sitting room, Covey was yawning widely.