The Pandemic by Lemon Curd
Summary: A new virus threatens muggles and magical people alike. When it turns out the virus is most lethal for children under eleven, Severus remembers that there is this child he has vowed to protect ...
Categories: Healer Snape Main Characters: .Snape and Harry (required)
Snape Flavour: Snape is Desperate
Genres: Hurt/Comfort
Media Type: None
Tags: Girl!Harry
Takes Place: 0 - Pre Hogwarts (before Harry is 11)
Warnings: Abusive Dursleys
Challenges: None
Series: None
Chapters: 3 Completed: No Word count: 6270 Read: 4927 Published: 18 Apr 2020 Updated: 01 May 2020
Chapter 2 by Lemon Curd
He wasn’t sure what he had expected. To find the girl locked in there for punishment, perhaps?

But that clearly wasn’t the case.

There was a makeshift bed in the cupboard. A bed!

Wide green eyes stared at him.

A small hand reached for the glasses on a shelf behind the bed. A shelf that was inhabited otherwise by a collection of things a child might have been collecting – a pretty stone on top of what looked like newspaper articles, the feather of a raven and a seashell.

And, of course, an empty glass.

It dawned on Severus that this was not a punishment, not even quarantine – it was where the girl usually lived.

Just as she put her glasses on, the girl’s body was shaken by a violent bout of coughing.

American Fever? Perhaps.

Even if not, this was no place for a child.

“If you try anything”, the girl said at last. “I will cough at you. I have American Fever, it will kill you.”

“As far as I am informed, it is more likely to kill children, such as you.” Damn, he had to get out of this habit of scaring first years. She wasn’t one of his students.

“It’s still dangerous for adults”, the girl insisted. “So you’d better leave me alone. If you want to kidnap a child, take Dudley. The Dursleys will pay for him.”

Dursley. That was the name on the door. The girl must be talking about her cousin. “But not for you?”, Severus asked, trying to gentle his voice.

“Nah, I’am a freak, they’ll be happy to be rid.” The girl rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling of the tiny space. “If you get me some water, I promise I won’t tell anyone what you look like. Or that I have seen you at all.”

Water. Why hadn’t he thought of it?

He took the empty glass, turned to the side and refilled it with a spell before handing it back. “Is there something else I could do for you?”

The girl took the glass and drank greedily. “You could keep Dudley for some months? It would be nice to not be bullied for a while.”

“You will not have to worry about your cousin bullying you ever again”, Severus replied. “You are coming with me.”

She dropped the glass. It broke with a noise that must have been heard in the whole house.

Severus performed a summoning charm on the keepsakes on the shelf, then took hold of the girls’ arm and disapparated.

When they arrived, he pulled her upright.

The living room in Spinner’s End had not looked so shabby when he had been there the last time. Or at least so he thought.

The Potter girl looked around. “Where are we? How did you do that?”

“We are in Cokeworth. And I did it by magic. Easy now. Don’t try to keep it back.”

But it soon became apparent that she would not vomit. Her body convulsed a bit, but that was it.

“Don’t you feel sick?”, Severus inquired. “Most people’s stomach rebels after traveling like we just did for the first time.”

“I haven’t eaten today. Why would you care? You’re a kidnapper.” She drew her thin – too thin – blanket closer around her.

“I am not a – we have been through this. If I were a kidnapper I would have kidnapped your cousin.” He hoped she didn’t know about the other kinds of criminals who abducted children. “Listen, I didn’t plan this. I had no intention of taking you with me.”

“But you did.” She raised her chin defiantly, even though she must feel weak with fever.

“I found out you lived with Petunia, that you were sick, and that she locked you in a cupboard.” Not just put her there, no, locked the door, too. “Do you think your aunt would have taken you to a hospital if it got worse?”

The girl frowned. “I don’t know. Perhaps, if it looked as if I was dying.”


Harriet shivered. More with cold than fear. She wasn’t feeling so good. In fact, she felt so feverish that she just wanted to lie on this worn-out but comfortable looking couch. The faded green fabric seemed the most inviting thing ever right now.

She had learnt not to touch other people’s furniture. Aunt Petunia had yelled at her for half an hour when she had mistakenly assumed she was allowed to sit on the new white couch.

“Get on the couch”, the man said, in a gruff voice, like someone else would tell children to get off his lawn. “You aren’t even wearing socks!”

Harriet obeyed, if only because she was too tired to remain standing. “Sorry, I didn’t know I was going to get kidnapped.”

The man glared at her, but didn’t reply anything. “Wait here”, he said at last.

Harried hadn’t planned on anything else. She wasn’t sure she could walk even to the door of the shabby living room. It felt so nice to be able to lie down on the couch, and pull her cold feet under the blanket.

Magic. The man had said he had brought her here by magic, but magic didn’t exist, everyone knew that!

Perhaps he had drugged her? She had felt weird for a moment, and he had expected her to throw up.

The man returned with a blanket that smelled of mothballs. The smell reminded Harriet of Mrs. Figg. Poor Mrs. Figg – she had been taken to the hospital just before Harriet had had the first symptoms.

“Are you still cold?”, he asked after he had placed it over her other blanket.

“A bit”, Harried admitted. She was still shivering, but she didn’t want to sound ungrateful. The man had been nice. For a kidnapper.
And just in that moment, she had to cough again, and thought of Aunt Petunia who would accuse her of attempting to look pitiful.

“I see ...” The stranger pulled a stick from his sleeve and pointed it at the fireplace. Blue fire appeared. Weird. “Are you hungry?”

Was she? The Dursleys never gave her anything to eat when she was poorly, because she might throw up and they didn’t want the mess.

The empty feeling in her stomach was so familiar that she hardly even noticed it anymore. “I guess, yeah.”

“Don’t get your hopes up, there’s only porridge.”

Harriet never got her hopes up anymore, so she wasn’t disappointed.

The Dursleys never ate porridge, so she had no idea if she liked it, but it was food.

Some time later, the kidnapper emerged from the kitchen and pushed a steaming bowl into her hands.

“I found some ginger. But it’s still just porridge.”

Whatever he had done to it, it tasted surprisingly nice. And it warmed her up. For the first time in what had felt like forever, she was almost comfortable. “That’s rather good, actually”, she said. “Don’t you like porridge?”

He shrugged. “It is food and serves the purpose. I was under the impression modern children did expect sugary cereal.”

“Maybe. Dudley sure does. I’m not like other children. I’m a freak. Just so you know. If you try anything, I might make the house explode or something.”

“You are not a freak.” He seemed to hesitate. “You can do magic.”

“Sure, that’s why I let Dudley bully me.” If she could do magic, she would turn Dudley into a pig, or something. No, better a guinea pig.

“Now, do not misunderstand me. You were born with the potential to use magic. You still have to learn how.”

That sounded all too good to be true. Like some made-up story a kidnapper would tell her to lull her into a false sense of security.

He could have drugged her.

“I do not usually live here in winter”, he changed the topic. “Except for the summer holidays I live at Hogwarts.”

“Hogwarts?”

He hesitated. “The boarding school I teach at. Since I cannot apparate us there, you need proper winter clothes first. I didn’t see any clothes in that cupboard ...?”

Apparate? Harriet decided to ask about it later. “They’re under the bed. Those that Aunt Petunia didn’t throw away when I got sick.”

“Why would she throw them away?”

“She didn’t want to get infected when washing them. So she put on gloves and dumped it all in the rubbish bin after I had changed into pyjamas.”

“And this doesn’t ... bother you? Didn’t you have a favourite dress or anything?” The kidnapper did not seem to speak from experience. He was dressed all in black and didn’t look like he cared what he was wearing as long as it was clothes and ‘served the purpose’.

“It is all Dudley’s old things, anyways.”

“Very well. Then nothing of sentimental value was lost. I will procure some adequate clothes for the situation. Do you have a favourite colour?”

“I like green. But only dark green.” Bright neon green made her deeply uncomfortable for some reason.

He nodded. “I will return as soon as possible. Is there anything you need before I leave?”

“Um. Could I have some more water, please?”

“Of course.”


Harriet knew she shouldn’t trust the kidnapper. But the porridge hadn’t been drugged, and she was thirsty. And she could flee while he was away.

If only she felt stronger. The food must do some good, surely? Perhaps she would be able to walk in a couple of minutes.


She drifted into uneasy sleep, then woke from a bout of coughing. How long had she slept? Would the kidnapper be back from his errands, soon?

He had seemed nice so far, but this all sounded much too suspicous. She had to get out of here and get help. Most people would probably take her to a hospital, which was a better than being with a kidnapper and also better than staying with the Dursleys.

Harriet forced herself to get up from the warm and comfortable couch, walked down the stairs one step at a time, and finally reached the end of the stairs.

Strangely, even after this small effort, she felt out of air. A short break, perhaps ... she sank to her knees.

When she woke, she couldn’t get air. Oh, she tried to breathe in, but it somehow didn’t work right.

It wasn’t like having a stuffed nose, because breathing through her mouth didn’t work, either. She could breathe but ... somehow it was never enough air ...

“Potter?! Where are you?”

Oh. The kidnapper was back. Harriet hit the floor with her hand. It hurt, but it did make some noise.

Perhaps the kidnapper would help her. Perhaps the vague hints he had made that she should be taken to a hospital meant that he would take her there.

And suddenly, he was there. “Breathe”, he pleaded. “Just breathe.”

Somehow, all the blankets Harriet had left behind were there, too. The kidnapper wrapped her in them and lifted her up in his arms.

Then there was that weird feeling again. Like being pressed through a too tight rubber tube. By now it didn’t feel so strange anymore, and fortunately, she didn’t feel like throwing up.

All of a sudden, it was really, really cold. Harriet took a deep breath. The air here seemed better, easier to breathe, but it still was not enough.

Trees seemed to move past. Or no, the man carried her past he trees.

It was a strange feeling, that someone actually cared if she lived or died. Somehow, she wasn’t so scared anymore.

The strange man would take care of things.

He paused to place her on a kind of stretcher, then pulled it behind him as he continued running.

Harriet still fought to get air.

She saw purple light explode on the clear blue sky.

Fighting for air for what felt like hours, and the stranger’s concerned face.

A old-ish woman looking at her.

Then, finally, she felt like breathing actually achieved anything. The woman turned her around. Strangely, lying on her stomach seemed to help, too.

“The bubble head charm? You use a simple bubble head charm?”, the man cried.

“Of course not. This is my own, improved version of the charm. The concentration of oxygen is much higher than in the standard spell. I also created a version that does not only cover mouth and nose, but the whole head, but where the concentration of oxygen is normal. I am using it right now, and so should you.”

“To prevent infection”, the man murmured. “I think I can infer how it works ...” He drew his stick – magic wand, Harriet suspected – and moved it in a way that seemed random, but Harried was now sure was everything but.

Magic!

So he had not lied to her. Not about that, at least.

“You will have to teach me the oxygen charm. But first, we need to take her to the hospital wing.”

Hospital. Hospital sounded good.

The woman frowned. “There is a problem with that”, she stated. “The hospital wing is overflowing.”

“Can it not be extended?”

“That is not the problem. Do you really suggest that we put Harriet Potter with the general student population?”

The strange woman knew her name? How was that possible?

“Ah, yes, that might pose a problem. Didn’t you have that separate room next to your office?”

“Currently taken by Professor Flitwick. And quite honestly, I am at the limit of my capacity as healer. There are just too many.”

Harriet closed her eyes, but tried to stay awake. She needed to find out if he had told her the truth about everything. It did sound like they really were at a school ...

“What? What happened while I was away?”

“Your predictions about the incubation time proved correct. I must to apologize, I should -”

“No need. It is not I who suffer from the consequences. And the neglect was not yours alone. Did you not, in fact, plead with the headmaster to act according to my predictions?”

“Yes – I thought you were just being pessimistic but thought it wiser ... I should not have let myself be talked out of it.”

“Very well. I can acommodate the girl in my personal quarters. Of course, you will have to wash her and help her into a clean nightgown ...”

“Hygiene is not a priority. And you are well capable of helping a child put on clothes.”

“She’s a girl, Madam Pomfrey! I cannot possibly ...”

“Fine. Step aside. I will make sure you won’t have to deal with any issues of female hygiene.”

Steps. The man walked away.

“Harriet? Can you hear me?”, the woman – Madam Pomfrey - asked gently.

She blinked and pretended to be just now waking up. “Madam? Who are you?”

“I am the Hogwarts school nurse. Don’t worry about that for the moment, dear. We don’t have much time, I’m afraid. I need to ask – do you have your blood moon already?”

What? Ah, right, magic people. Of course they had weird things. “Um. What is that?”

“Well, dear, when a girl becomes a woman, her body prepares for pregnancy each moon cycle, and ...”

“Oh, you mean my period. No, not yet. I hope, never.” Dudley and the other boys at school bullied her horribly because she had no breasts. They bullied the girls who already had breasts, too, and she didn’t even want to imagine asking Aunt Petunia for pads.

That same Aunt Petunia who had made sure Dudley didn’t go to school the days they had sex ed. She had kept Harriet at home, too, but unlike Dudley, Harriet actually read the school books and therefore had a good idea of what would happen. It was unthinkable to talk to Aunt Petunia about something like periods.*

“No need to be dramatic. Every woman has to deal with it. Just come to me when it starts, dear.

Why did she assume Harriet would still be here, then? “Okay.”

“I will put a spell on you that informs me when you need help”, the nurse informed her, and pointed a stick – wand – at her, mumbled an incatation and nodded, apparently satisfied with her perfectly invisible spell.

“All good”, she called over to the man. “Now, watch as I demonstrate the oxygen spell, I really need to be leaving, my other patients need me.”

Harried dozed off while they talked, comforting herself with the knowledge that she really couldn’t glean any useful information from things she didn’t understand at all.
To be continued...
End Notes:
* = I'm assuming the British school system at the time was about as good as the German one - I considered Harriet not knowing about periods, as it would be just like Petunia to never give her that talk, but then I remembered the topic was briefly covered in primary school. So I settled for Petunia making it clear that she won't make an exception from mistreating Harriet in that respect.


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