~~~~HP~~~~

Saturday 8 November 1997

Harry fully expected Snape to come back last night. Not right away, of course. Not after kicking him out and vehemently stating he didn't want the professor there. He knew they both needed time to process the news of his results and cool down before trying to work out their anger with each other. At some point, though - before the time they arbitrarily designated as "bedtime" - Harry expected to see his mentor walk back into the room. So when that hour passed by with only his nurses filtering in and out to check his vitals or offer to help him get ready for bed, his heart ached more than he'd ever willingly admit.

In stark contrast to his previous weeks where he was hardly able to keep his eyes opened, last night his sleep evaded him, leaving the young wizard metaphorically tossing and turning - shifting in bed with an IV leading into his port was something he doubted he'd ever really get used to - and certainly didn't bode well to start the coming week's battle. At some point in the early pre-dawn hours, the emotional exhaustion of the day must have caught up with him forcing Harry into a restless sleep for an hour or so. One minute he was reading and re-reading the same page of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - trying to ignore the guilt building up inside of him for lying to his friends - and the next someone he didn't recognize woke him up around four o'clock in the morning by collecting the blood sample the pharmacy needed to release his first round of chemo. At first, he panicked. Irrational images about Voldemort and the Death Eaters raced through his mind for the few seconds it took for him to remember where he was and why - Guildford hospital for inpatient aggressive chemotherapy. Then came the fleeting glimmer of hope wondering if Snape came back while he slept; however, it quickly died the moment he put on his glasses and saw the professor's bed still in its sofa configuration, his belongings half scattered on it mocked him of the man's missing presence.

The reality of facing day one of a difficult and, based on Dr Swanson's news last night, exceedingly important cycle felt suffocating. Doing as he always did when faced with an uphill battle, Harry put aside his feelings and focused on how to get through the day. It meant no matter how much he wanted to stay in bed to sulk, with his first medication of the cycle being a continuous days' infusion, he opted for a quick shower between his blood sample and the start of his anti-nausea medication, knowing the next chance to clean up wouldn't come until tomorrow. Unfortunately, as the morning continued, Harry's "go get 'em" mentality quickly dissolved and in its place left disappointment - in himself mostly, not that he'd be able to admit to such - followed by a seething anger lodging into his core. Now settled back into his bed, Harry stared at the plain white ceiling focusing on the pressure of the new nurse - Stacey, according to the name written on his whiteboard - preparing his port to officially start his Cycle B medication.

"What? No dad this morning?"

Deep down Harry knew the new nurse with her kind chocolate-brown eyes - Stacey, Harry reminded himself - meant no harm by asking about his mentor. Nevertheless, he still found himself getting agitated; specifically in his uncertainty in how honest he wanted to be with his answer.

"He's not my father," Harry scathingly responded. Having been caught off guard, the nurse's gloved hands paused mid-motion, a move not belonging in the familiar chemotherapy dance. "My parents died when I was a baby and… well, he's just my professor. I'm more of a duty than anything."

"Oh really," her hands restarted their familiar rhythm again as she spoke. Harry watched her eyes shift over to Snape's scattered belongings making it obvious that she didn't fully believe him. "From what I hear, he hardly left your side during your last cycle. Seems like a bit more than just your professor, if you ask me."

"Yeah, well... I didn't ask you, did I?" Harry retorted. "And that was then… he's not here now, is he?"

A knock on the door briefly raised Harry's spirits, except rather than the dark-haired dreary professor he wanted to see, Dr Swanson unceremoniously walked in. Confused over his current sentiment towards his oncologist, the young wizard closed his eyes pretending to be anywhere else. Mentally, Harry followed her footsteps, creating a picture in his mind of her location throughout the room, stopping at the lavatory to check his urine output - where he embarrassingly had to leave a sample this morning in a sterile cup -, writing on the whiteboard on the wall at foot of his bed, then approaching the side behind his new nurse.

"Thank you, Stacey," his muggle physician eventually announced, and Harry heard the chair being pulled towards his bed. "I'll take over here. Please take his sample for a urine test so we can have a baseline for today."

"Of course, Dr Swanson," the nurse replied.

Even though Harry felt Stacey's hand squeezed his forearm before leaving his bedside, the young wizard kept his eyes tightly closed - too tightly to appear realistic - willing himself to fall asleep and wake up next week. The air around him shifted, and he heard the plastic bottom of the chair creak as Dr Swanson settled down into it. After what seemed like minutes, Harry eventually cracked one eye open ignoring how juvenile he came off in the process. His lights were dimmed, leaving Dr Swanson's face half shadowed, yet illuminated enough to see her curiously tilt her head at him.

"You might want to remove your glasses next time you want to convincingly pretend to be asleep," his physician bantered, causing Harry to fully open both of his eyes.

Peeking up at the IV stand on the side of his bed, the bright yellow colour of his chemotherapy medication stood out compared to the other three clear ones hanging and instantaneously knotted his stomach. "I just wanted to be left alone," he lied. "It's really, really early, anyway, don't you have anywhere better to be?"

"Obviously," she chortled. "I don't particularly enjoy getting up at an hour most others would deem 'the middle of the night' to leave my family and come here, but after last night I thought it best, just in case you or Severus-" she turned to the sofa where the professor normally would be seated, "-had any questions or concerns."

"He… erm… had to be somewhere this morning," Harry offered, unsure why he felt embarrassed to acknowledge he kicked the other wizard out. "I… erm… think he'll be back soon… and then I'll let him know anything you tell me."

When no question arose about what happened, Harry assumed she believed him. Unfortunately, the notion quickly vanished when she asked, "Is it alright with you if I ask Dr Wright to stop by today?"

Harry's face flushed with anger. "No, it's not alright," he growled back. He didn't want to talk to anyone about Snape, especially the teen support group doctor, having only met the man once. "I don't have any questions about today… it's going to be bloody awful, I got that much… and I doubt Severus will have any either - if he ever shows up here again - so you're off the hook this morning."

"I don't believe that, Harry," she challenged him.

"Which part?"

"Any of it," she stood and leaned against his bed. "You need to speak up if something's bothering you. I know we've had our challenges in the past, don't think I haven't noticed your preference for Dr Smithe to me, so if not to me or Dr Wright, then I can call in Alton, Dr Snyder… even Christopher. Or if there's anyone at your school you'd be more comfortable-"

"I'm fine," Harry defiantly crossed his arms around his chest, wincing when he snagged the line to his port.

"I know the news last night scared you-"

"Oh, do you now?" The teen interjected. "And did you figure this out before or after you got into a yelling match about it with Severus?!"

Recognizing his misdirected frustration, Harry clenched his jaw tight, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath in through his nose. He hadn't thought about his magic as of late, yet he'd give just about anything for access to it solely for the Occlumency - to be able to lose himself deep within his forest during moments like these.

To her credit, Dr Swanson appeared neither bothered nor sympathetic over his attitude, irritating him further, for reasons he didn't understand. Presumably, she dealt with many teenage attitudes throughout her day and given how she usually saw her patients at their lowest moments, she gained a lot of patience - Harry mentally scratched his head at the double word - to stay calm during it. Still, it bothered him that she wasn't bothered by him lashing out.

"As I mentioned at your last treatment," while Dr Swanson moved onto the logistics for the day Harry internally prided himself in winning the small disagreement between them, "we'll be keeping close attention to your kidneys today, so you'll be asked to give urine samples every couple of hours. If anything starts to look off, your dosage will be adjusted accordingly to give you the most medication with the least amount of damage. Any questions?'

"What if I don't have to piss when you need a sample?" He aggressively countered. "What then?"

The muggle doctor smiled, clearly anticipating the topic. "We have our ways," she narrowed her eyes, then flicked them up to his IV bag and his green eyes followed. "One of those-" her head gestured to the bags, "-is filled with fluids to help flush your system, so to say. We need to keep you well hydrated and the pipes clean, and as a result, you should feel the need to use the toilet more often. So if I were you, I wouldn't place too much concern into not being able to go."

Under normal circumstances, the way she worded the explanation would have made him at least smirk, maybe even chuckle. In his current mood though, it sounded like another piece of his body no longer belonged to him. Sure, logically he understood they needed to prevent the build-up of whatever toxin this chemo wanted to leave in his body, it just didn't change his feelings surrounding his body no longer being his: starting with his port literally taking up a part of his body, to not having the freedom to shower whenever he wanted, and now he couldn't even choose when to take a piss or not.

"Is that all?"

The sigh response tugged at his guilt. He didn't want to be difficult, it just happened to be how he felt inside.

"Yes," she relented, "you're on these medications for a full day. Try to get up and move today if you can. As always, the Hub and Library are available. The earlier the better, too, because this one may make you a bit drowsy later on in the day."

She paused, waiting for his acknowledgement, with her hands clasped behind her back. Holding onto his fury, Harry simply glared in contempt with nothing else he needed to say. Internally, he wondered if he'd always been this quiet - used to Snape filling in the gaps - or if it was because of his newfound desire to hold onto as much of his own free will as possible.

Probably both, he concluded.

"Very well," his oncologist regretfully shook her head. "If you need anything, you know where to find help."

Harry scowled, watching his door close behind the last person he had any chance of connecting to during this awful week.

I'm fine on my own, he told himself, I don't need anyone here.

I am absolutely not fine right now.

Not long after the lunch Harry mostly nibbled on, the Gryffindor regretted every word he said to anyone in the past twelve hours. There were only a handful of times he'd been left alone to deal with the side effects of his chemo - none of them he currently remembered, yet he was certain they existed - and sitting there in the reclining chair between his bed and the sofa, he vowed to do whatever it took not to put himself in this position again.

His body ached, his stomach roiled, though he had yet to vomit, and no matter how hard he tried to stay focused on the sketchbook in his lap, his mind became too fuzzy to get much further than adding some details to Hermione's hair in the Halloween Ball picture he started after Draco's arrest. In the picture, he planned to show what the night might have looked like had the Aurors not arrived at all. In the days following the Ball, Dudley told him how he'd talked Snape into allowing Harry to attend the after-party and no matter how hard the Gryffindor tried to stop it, the bitterness of yet again missing such an experience swept over him. Perspective, he reminded himself. When thinking about Draco wasting away in Azkaban while Harry sulked about a missed party, remorse promptly replaced the bitterness and he decided to release his pent up emotion by sketching what he thought the party might have been like. Unfortunately, he hardly had a chance to start it before coming to the hospital, getting distracted by one thing or another: Foundations homework Snape still required him to attend alone, his constant exhaustion - in hindsight, a sign of his failed remission -, or just his lack of focus, and now sitting here mentally berating himself for his own failures didn't help make any progress.

"Harry?"

The soft female voice entering his room made him groan. Kathleen, his very first AYA nurse, walked in a half a second later; long enough to say she respected his privacy, but not nearly enough for him to deny her entry or make himself presentable if he were on the toilet or something. Making the sound decision not to burn any of the few remaining bridges still standing, he made an effort to push aside his irritation.

"Come in." His greeting was ceremonial at best, since the muggle nurse already stood in front of his whiteboard making notes.

Her writing paused at his sour words, and Harry curiously watched her detour from her note mid-sentence to draw a star in the upper right-handed corner of the board. After turning to face Harry - her previous sentence forgotten - she casually asked, "Tell me how're you feeling so far."

"What's the star for?"

She condescendingly looked over her shoulder as if she didn't just make the symbol herself. "It's a way we communicate with the other members of your support team, just like everything else on the board."

"What does it mean?"

"Using the pain scale, how are you feeling?"

He blinked at her. The answering his question with one of her own reminded him too much of Snape and Draco for his current disposition. If she wanted to play this game, he truly believed he could out Slytherin her having navigated their treacherous waters far too often.

Waiting for his answer, she went about her business - checking Harry's vitals and changing out the emptying bags of medication for new ones - never seeming bothered by the heavy silence. How long would she wait? If he chose not to declare his own misery, would she just walk out without saying another word about anything? Or maybe she'd decide where he fell on the pain scale for him?

"Six… approaching seven," he finally muttered with a small crack in his voice from the dryness of his throat. Picking up on that nuance, Kathleen handed him the small cup of ginger ale he previously poured from the cans Snape brought with them yesterday. The no longer cold fluid coating throat soothed it in a way he'd never be able to describe to anyone else, and the ginger inside helped to quiet the straining of his stomach muscles, at least temporarily. "Now what does the star mean?"

Kathleen shook her head and walked back to document his pain level. "It's a notation for whoever enters informing them that the patient is alone… that his parent, guardian, or support person isn't present. And a circle around your pain amount-" she drew a red six beside the star where they always recorded his pain scale number and then exaggeratedly circled it "-tells us the patient is having a rough emotional day on top of the physical pain."

Frowning, the young wizard wanted to let his irritation loose and tell her how much he didn't need someone to tiptoe around him. However, the idea of his "team" looking out for him - even after being as difficult as he'd been since kicking Snape out - cooled down his raging emotions to where he couldn't muster up the reaction.

"Great, so now everyone knows I'm being an arse?" he said, defeatedly. "I can always just erase it, y'know."

"You won't…" she confidently countered, "and if you do, it'll only serve to make things harder for you in the long run. Let us do our jobs, Harry. Trust me, we know a thing or two about what we're doing by now." When Harry continued to stare, she pulled out a small urine cup and said, "I need to collect a sample for your second test. I'm going to leave this on the lavatory sink. Do you need any help with-"

"No," Harry hastily interrupted. So long as he was able to physically make it to the lavatory - an act he thankfully could still do for now - he definitely didn't want anyone in there with him. "I'll take care of it. Do I just leave the… erm… sample in there?"

"Yes," Kathleen smiled. "Leave it by the sink and I'll be back to collect it in a bit. Is there anything else you need? I think Christopher planned to stop by a little later… unless you'd like me to tell him you're not interested."

His green eyes shifted off his nurse's sympathetic face to the circle around the number six on the whiteboard. They'd already deemed him "emotionally challenging" today and he had no one to blame except himself.

"No, it's fine," the teen winced, wondering if the nurses judged their patients' state in the same way Snape did: based on their usage of the word "fine".

"Are you ok?" The nurse cautiously asked. "More pain?"

"No," he sheepishly confessed, "I was just thinking if you guys hated the word 'fine' as much as… Severus… does-"

"Oh, we absolutely do." Harry's head whipped up at the sound of Mae's voice answering his question. "And the more 'fine' they claim they are, the more often we check-in."

He hoped the grin spread across his face showed how much he appreciated her distraction. "Why doesn't that surprise me?"

"I think we both know the answer to that one," she laughed. Not giving him a chance to counter with his own witty reply, her expression changed to a more serious one, one he hadn't ever seen on her. "May I come in?"

Her timid voice as she spoke caused Harry to startle. Outside of being pleased she asked his permission first - an act he looked back on and realized she always had when visiting him - he felt relieved to have her there with him, even if he found himself wishing Snape followed her in. Naturally, he speculated when the professor left the hospital last night, the man stayed with his girlfriend nearby. That appeared to not be the case, though, and was confirmed when Harry nodded in reply and Mae entered alone, closing the door in her wake. His heart ached fiercely imagining Snape where he went and enjoying being away from responsibility Harry inevitably brought him.

"Well, I see you're in good hands," Kathleen spoke up, moving to swap positions with Mae, allowing his visitor to sit on the sofa near him. "Don't forget your urine sample. We have to stay on top of those pH levels today."

"Yes, ma'am," Harry saluted back, earning himself an odd giggle out of Mae.

Being alone with Snape's girlfriend made Harry more uncomfortable than he anticipated. For the first time since her arrival to his room, the young wizard took notice of her appearance. Her jeans and unassuming red jumper stood out to him as a strange choice of outfit for a Saturday - the day she typically worked at the chemotherapy clinic. Had she not gone there that day? And if not, did she plan for the day off or did something else happen, forcing her to alter her plans? Mae's normally neatly tied back blonde hair sitting in a messy knot high on the back of her head - a style she'd likely never wear out in a professional environment - all but confirmed she had no intention of going to the clinic. Her eyes, bloodshot red and puffy, were the most telling. Something happened and if Harry were in a better physical and mental state, he'd probably work his way through the myriad of possibilities it might have been. Instead, he swiftly came to a single conclusion: something bad happened to Snape. What if the professor didn't return last night because he physically couldn't come back? What if he'd been hurt, or worse... killed… after leaving the hospital on Harry's insistence? Unexpectedly, all of the oxygen in Harry's lungs disappeared and he might as well have been trying to refill them through a tiny straw; no matter how hard he inhaled, not enough came in. A panic attack. Unfortunately, the words to explain his body's reaction were buried too deep in the recesses of his brain to have any actual ability to help him overcome it. Thankfully, Mae recognized his distress and she ended up kneeling on the floor in front of Harry's chair.

"...deep breath," her voice sounded foreign and underwater, but he listened to it anyway. "... That's good… focus on my hands holding yours…"

His hands squeezed practically on their own and the warmth he found inside of them helped to ground him back into reality. Slowly, the fog around his vision started to clear and Mae's face - sitting closer to him than he'd like - came into view. The reprieve was short-lived though. Images of Snape being caught, tortured, and killed by the new Death Eater regime raced across his eyes. Never did he stop to logically consider how Mae, a muggle, would be notified of Snape's death via Death Eaters. If anything, it'd be McGonagall navigating her way through the hospital - probably with Hermione's help - to tell him what happened, leaving him to be the one telling Mae the news.

"There you go… just breathe. It's alright."

The hand in his squeezed back, but it was too late. Having worked himself up after hours of chemo made it impossible to hold down the bile once it proceeded to creep up the back of his throat. Panicking because he had zero chance of getting to the lavatory in time, seemingly out of nowhere a basin appeared in his hands, replacing the warm touch he previously clung to. Wave after wave of heaving produced very little substance - just enough to leave his mouth coated in the acidic taste, his stomach tight, and his esophagus raw and sore - and left him completely exhausted.

"S'rry," he moaned, allowing Mae to take the basin out of his grip.

"Hey," she rubbed his back in just the right place, not coincidentally the same spot Snape did whenever he vomited, "there's nothing to be embarrassed about. You were having a panic attack… does that happen a lot?"

"Sometimes," he admitted. "Not as often anymore…"

His eyes focused on the spot past her shoulder where Snape's belongings still sat scattered around the sofa.

"He didn't come back here, did he?" She softly inquired. Harry's gaze never left the sofa. "Want to tell me what happened?"

Did he want to tell her? And if so, where would he even start?

"I told him to leave," it seemed like the most relevant piece, and yet standing alone he doubted it made much sense. "He just made me so… angry… when he got angry when Dr Swanson said I didn't get to remission."

His face scrunched. If he confused himself, he must have sounded nutters to her.

"He told me last night."

So he did go see her, Harry bitterly thought. This time, rather than allowing the negative emotion to consume him, he remembered her dishevelled appearance. Something obviously happened between them last night while Snape was there.

"I'm sorry it's not the news you wanted to hear." She placed her hand supportively on his knee. Harry eyed it apprehensively. "Try to remember that remission after the second month isn't completely off the table, especially with the regimen you're on. You have two cycles making up the round, so you're really only halfway through.

"Do we want to see remission immediately? Of course we do, but sometimes it takes two tries. This doesn't automatically mean you're not going to reach it… Dr Swanson wouldn't have you continuing if she didn't think this was your best chance to beat this."

The lump in Harry's throat unwillingly grew.

"Thanks," he murmured, closing his eyes tightly. "I know all of that… it's just… hard to remember."

"Then let us keep reminding you."

She made it sound so simple, just like everyone else he talked to about it. His friends had no clue what he faced on a daily basis, Snape went irate over the mere notion of losing Harry, and although his care team knew what to say and how to deliver it best, they weren't connected enough to him to fill the missing void he had inside. Sitting there, Mae back on the sofa next to his reclining chair, Harry realized how the muggle nurse fell into all three of those categories. She might not have been on his official care team - seeing as she worked in the clinic and not in the hospital - but she spoke to him in the same manner, he valued her opinion as much as one of his friends, and he trusted her like Snape.

"So… erm… what happened to Severus then?" He casually shifted the awkward conversation back to Mae, giving him more time to process his new thoughts about her. "I kind of thought he'd be with you."

"He came to my flat last night. We had a row," her eyebrows fell low onto her forehead and Harry thought he heard her breath hitch with emotion. "He told me about… actually, I don't want to get into the details… he got angry at something I said, and when I tried to stop him from leaving he…"

She stopped and Harry's breathing shallowed in anticipation. Swallowing back another round of threatening bile, Harry went through all of the things a man like Snape might do if pushed past his limits. Unfortunately, only one came to mind.

"He hurt you?" The question came so quietly, he was shocked she heard it.

"No," Mae swiftly replied. "Not exactly. He got angry and then my flatmate got involved and he grabbed… we're both alright… I can't say the same about our window though. I don't remember him hitting it, but at some point, he must have… and hard too, because it shattered."

Harry's face whitened. Could adults release accidental magic or did Snape let his anger get the better of him and hitting the window was better than either woman.

"I assumed he'd be here when I stopped by to see you. If I'm honest, it's why I didn't come by earlier," she went on. "I'm guessing he went back home… wherever that is."

"Cokeworth," Harry blurted out without thinking first. Her eyes widened, evidently recognizing the name of their small town. Feeling the need to give some kind of context, he quickly added, "It's where he and my mum grew up. You see… it doesn't make the most sense to buy or rent something for only the summer so we live in his childhood house. It's perfect for the two of us, really it is."

Throughout Harry's young life, he'd been judged over many things: his oversized, torn clothes as a child, for being the wizarding saviour when he entered the magical world when everyone thought he put his name into the Goblet of Fire, and then claiming Voldemort returned. None of them combined made him as self-conscious as trying to justify to his mentor's girlfriend why they lived in such a broken-down place. In his heart, Harry didn't care where they'd lived. The idea of having a place to go to where he was wanted fulfilled his needs because Privet Drive certainly never felt like his home and, no matter how hard he wanted it to be, realistically Hogwarts couldn't be one. Beyond merely the structure and neighbourhood, though, it was Snape who made Spinner's End his home. His bedroom in the house wasn't any bigger than Dudley's second one he occupied in his summers between Hogwarts terms and the area - being the garden, parks, and shops - definitely lacked that of Little Whinging. So logically, he concluded it must be Snape who made the dilapidated house their home.

And I told him I didn't want him here.

"I see," Mae watched him keenly, working through the process in his head. Thankfully, she didn't push him for any more details. "Would you like me to hang out here for a bit with you? I have no other plans today, but I'll totally understand if it makes you uncomfortable given things between me and Severus."

"Yeah, I'd like that," he genuinely grinned. Outside of the distraction she'd bring from his chemo, he liked having her there and knowing that despite how things were with the professor, she still wanted to spend time with him, almost erasing all his negativity. "Any chance you can find us a game to play?"

"Absolutely!" Mae excitedly stood, straightening out her jumper in the process. "How about I go find Christopher and sweet talk him into a Mario Kart set up while you go and take care of that urine sample. I'd hate to see anything bad happen because you forgot on my account."

Harry's face heated up. "Fine. I guess I don't want that either."

Not thinking twice of leaving the muggle nurse alone in his room, Harry pushed himself up out of the chair and while pulling his IVs beside him, slowly walked himself to his lavatory. Believing nothing bad could come of it, the young wizard didn't wait to see or hear if she left before he closed the door to do his business, meaning he didn't see when a golden coin laying haphazardly under the sofa bed near her feet caught her eye or when she bent down to pick up, placing it in her pocket to ask about later.

~~~~SS~~~~

Severus's head furiously pounded against the inside of his skull as he blinked his eyes open, taking in the drabby room around him. The light flowing into the room through the window to his right blanketed his face signalling the end of the storms of the previous night. If only his inner demons could be blown away as easily as the passing weather all might be right in the world.

Despite how much he wanted to, Severus didn't drink a drop of alcohol when he arrived back at Spinner's End just past eleven o'clock. When he stormed through the door of his childhood home after losing his temper in front of Mae and Jessica - releasing an uncanny bout of accidental magic in the process - he immediately went to his well-stocked liquor cabinet eager to numb the pain coursing through his veins. For years following the end of the first war, the former Death Eater prided himself in his ability to avoid the cabinet as a means for coping with his guilt - a simple act his own father never managed to accomplish - and in his old reality, the cabinet was only visited on celebratory occasions or a late-night chat with friends. Here, though, his counterpart frequented it more and more and Severus hated the natural urge he had for the drink whenever life became too unbearable to manage. And so with the bottle of whiskey mere centimetres from his lips, he surprised himself by throwing it against his bookcase, shattering the glass around him in much the same manner as Mae's window, and soaking his ancient tomes in the strongly scented liquid. As always, the peace he attained by the act of violence waned too soon and he fought the intense urge to continue to ravage the room around him, settling his eyes back onto the liquor cabinet. Gritting his teeth, he hastily made the decision not to allow himself to fall into the same pit of despair when they received the news of Harry's relapse. Frantically, Severus collected every single bottle out of the cabinets, poured them down the kitchen sink, then vanished the empty bottles to the outside rubbish bin, thus removing all temptation to find solace in drinking… or breaking the empty glass bottles.

Regrettably, the action left the former Death Eater with little else to do in the house other than to berate himself over the horrible mistakes he made in the past several hours.

To anyone else, the idea of replacing the alcohol with a Calming Draught would have been innocent enough. Under normal circumstances, the common variation of the potion found in almost any local apothecary - not requiring any healer missive - would be sufficient to quiet his raging thoughts. Where he went wrong in the night was his notion that this wasn't "normal circumstances", and therefore validated a stronger concentration than what he had in his upstairs lavatory stock. As an esteemed Potioneer, Severus possessed more than the standard, everyday concentration of any potion - most of which he brewed himself - and without consciously realizing it, he managed to stumble down to his cellar laboratory. What seemed like a reasonable selection of a modified Draught of Peace to soothe his nerves went too far, especially when combined with the sleeping draught he took sometime around three in the morning.

I'm lucky all I have is a migraine.

His head continued to rattle angrily as he cautiously rolled off his stomach onto his back, causing his silver bedspread to tangle up his limbs and expose his bare chest to the cold pre-winter air. Still wearing the pair of muggle black jeans he wore to the hospital, he must've removed his shirt at some point in the middle of the night; for what reason, he couldn't quite recall. Knowing he ultimately needed to get up to start to rectify the problems he created, the professor slowly peeled himself off the bed, his stomach dropping at the sight of the clock on his bedside table: two o'clock in the afternoon - he missed almost half of Harry's first day of Cycle B.

Continuing his journey out of bed, each small movement sent a wave of nausea rippling through his body until he found himself leaning against his lavatory sink, splashing water on his face, and wondering how Harry was handling his new chemotherapy. Regardless of the teen's words last night, he should have been there with him. Now, not only did he miss the official start of the new regimen - and his time to get answers for all the things plaguing him about Cycle B -, it was now almost halfway through. For all he knew, Harry had a worse reaction than normal to it and was laying in bed miserable and alone. Yet no matter how hard he tried to create some kind of emotional connection to the situation, nothing transpired. It was like his brain sat deep within a thick fog paralyzing it from the rest of his body. He was completely numb to the environment around him, unable to connect with any of the thoughts or desires he had brewing inside of him.

What the hell did I take last night?!

Arriving at the hospital in this state, being incapable of conjuring an iota of remorse for the damage he caused, would do nothing but put Harry further on edge. Admittedly, their relationship took a major fall when Severus chose to focus his response on his own sorrow and need to fix the situation, rather than on Harry and his feelings regarding the news. To begin to repair the bridges he burned he needed a clearer mind, which required time for the potions to metabolize out of his body. An hour, he told himself, maybe two, and he'd be prepared to face his failed obligations. In the end, it took two and half hours for him to be able to understand the full gravity of his emotions, therefore deeming himself well enough to travel to Guildford.

Wearing a new pair of dark muggle blue jeans and a jumper, transfigured out of an old set of robes he found tucked in the back of his wardrobe, Severus stood outside the hospital doors staring up at the brownstone building. More nervous than any other time in his life - including his many Death Eater meetings spent in Voldemort's presence - his hand anxiously patted against his thigh while you are not a Gryffindor chanted through his head.

"Coming in?" A woman roughly his own age asked, holding the door open behind her. Vaguely familiar, Severus scarcely got a chance to respond when she smiled. "Adolescent Oncology, right? I saw you there last month. My daughter, Evie, was a bit… scared of you."

Just how I like it.

Her eyebrows lifted, silently beckoning him into their shared prison. Rubbing the small muscles in his forehead, he trudged forward, crossing the threshold into the familiar building.

"I'm Anne, by the way," she exuberantly waved her greeting to him in a way that to anyone else would look awkward, but Severus knew exactly why she did it - for the same reason, she offered to hold the door open for him: to limit their germ exposure.

"Severus," he replied, raising his own hand in a similar greeting.

They silently walked side-by-side across the atrium on their way to the bank of lifts. Waiting for the next one to arrive, Severus noticed his new acquaintance peering up at a television perched in the upper corner of the corridor. The electronic box played the muggle news and Severus was about to tune it out when the female newscaster said a familiar name, catching his attention.

"Dr Matthew Taylor, a local surgeon working at the Guildford Hospital, was pronounced dead earlier today due to a severe head injury he sustained during an accident in a construction area near the hospital where he worked."

It took Severus longer than usual to remember why the name sounded so familiar. His mind flashed back to the first day of Harry's inpatient treatment when he sat with Jessica in the cafeteria:

"Had it not been for Taylor, they would have died in that alleyway."

"Who's Taylor?"

"Oh, he's a resident surgeon here," she told him, "and was the one who saw the two get attacked on his way in for his shift. He stayed with them until the medics arrived and came in with them."

Interest piqued, the former spy focused on the news report of the incident just as much as Anne, hoping for the first time the lift would be delayed.

"The Guildford police are asking for any help in identifying a man caught by CCTV footage outside of the hospital. The unknown suspect approached the victim moments before two flashes of unknown origin covered the area. Subsequently, a large scaffold fell causing Taylor to sustain a high-level spinal cord and head injury which became fatal. Unfortunately, in the chaos of the accident, the suspect somehow managed to disappear before anyone had the chance to question him..."

The picture on the screen shifted to a black and white video of a construction area where a man walking by - presumably Dr Matthew Taylor - was stopped by another man. The pair appeared to speak to one another briefly, then two flashes of light filled the entire screen, followed by a cloud of dust once the second light subsided. When the dust settled, the scene left reminded the professor of the night he rescued Harry out of Privet Drive. A scaffold, previously holding supplies above the walkway, laid across the ground with the surgeon lying beneath it all. Missing from the scene was the man they were searching for.

The ding of the arriving lift startled Severus so much he physically jumped. His new companion sent him a sympathetic side glance, passing by him as he returned her earlier favour by holding the lift door open for her.

"It's horrible, isn't it?" She sadly asked him inside of the lift. "On the news… Did you know him? Dr Taylor, I mean."

"No," Severus slyly responded. "At least not personally."

"Guess that's for the better. He was part of the team who removed Evie's first tumour a year ago," she practically whispered, clearly shaken up by the news of the physician's death. "He helped save my little girl's life and now… I just can't believe he's gone. It's all the nurses upstairs have been talking about today."

A second memory of Jessica - one much more recent - came to him:

"She had a tough shift at the hospital. One of the physicians she knew pretty well came in after some freak accident this afternoon."

The death of the surgeon - the witness to whoever attempted to kill Jugson and Gibbons - explained Jessica's cold attitude towards his interruption of their "girls' night". Mae tried to tell him, but her own cavalier attitude about it alongside his declining mental state made it impossible for him to place the pieces together. He'd made too many small, subtle mistakes for his liking.

The door to the lift opened and Severus immediately picked up on the elevated grief-filled atmosphere. The same news station played on the television near the welcome station, but the story changed sometime during the lift ride to the AYA ward to one on an urgent recall of lettuce.

Approaching the welcome desk together, Severus expected to show his muggle identification card - same as Anne and every other occasion he came and went - except where the welcome nurse waved his female counterpart onto the floor, she abruptly stopped him.

"Mr Potter, I need you to wait here for a minute. Harry's nurse asked to speak with you when you returned," Gertrude called him back to the desk, the mere two steps he managed to take. Severus audibly sighed wondering when he became so comfortable taking his nemesis' identity. He preferred his Mr Evans cover, nonetheless, Harry no longer needed to hide and therefore the professor would do what he needed.

Anne's sympathetic wave did little to diminish his tension. Surely nothing too serious happened during the day. The hospital had his phone number at Spinner's End and although he'd been, more or less, dead to the world in his potion induced stupor, if he'd missed a call to his number the parchment note should've notified him.

"Welcome back, Severus," Kathleen, the first charge nurse of Harry's cycle A treatment, greeted him. "Let's go somewhere a little more private to speak."

"What happened?" He demanded, not moving a muscle in the direction she began walking - opposite of Harry's room, he noted. "I need to check on Harry."

"Well, I'm afraid that's not possible right now," the head nurse asserted.

Her serious demeanour ran his blood cold. What were the risks associated with this particular medication again? His mind drew a blank. Back when chemotherapy started, he'd been diligent in reading and memorizing every possible reaction Harry might have to them. When did that change? When did he become so complacent with it all?

Urine, he recalled. They planned to check Harry's urine for something - what, he couldn't remember - to make sure his kidneys weren't getting damaged. And his liver… Dr Swanson mentioned his liver, but not any particulars surrounding it.

His legs must have followed the muggle nurse on their own accord because the next thing Severus knew, she was ushering him into a small office near the gym. No bigger than a lavatory, the room contained space for only a small table and three uncomfortable looking wooden chairs. A short, wide window positioned along the top of the far wall allowed enough natural light to make it not appear suffocating. Nothing about the room screamed "inviting" and with his first step inside, the air around him felt almost damp with anguish, giving Severus the impression they used this room to deliver bad news to parents.

"Do you want to take a seat?" The nurse offered, choosing one of the chairs at the end - leaving the other two together, clearly meant for a couple - as opposed to the one on the other side of the table.

"I'm fine standing."

"Suit yourself," she ran her hands on top of her thighs; a nervous habit, Severus noted. "This afternoon Harry had a seizure-like episode-"

"What do you mean 'seizure-like'?"

Kathleen took a cleansing breath. "Dr Swanson will need to go through the details with you," she explained. "What I can say is that the medication he started this morning carries a small risk of neurological-"

"No," he firmly interjected, "that's tomorrow's medication…. Unless I managed to sleep through an entire day-" given the state he woke up in, the possibilities were endless, "- it's tomorrow's medicine he needs the extra testing for. Why weren't we informed of any 'seizure-like' effects?!"

"Mr Snape," Kathleen condescendingly addressing him by his proper surname sounded foreign, "there are a myriad of rare side effects you can review in the pamphlets given to you before each treatment… everything from loss of fertility to secondary cancers are outlined in them and yes, today's treatment carried a small chance of seizure. I warn you, though, to take them with a grain of salt. His oncologist has already weighed the risk versus reward to determine the best course of action for his short term health. Do things like this pop-up? Occasionally. And they'll take them one hurdle at a time."

He didn't like that answer and wished he hadn't waited for the calming draught to fully wear off, he certainly needed one. Glaring over at the nurse still seated at the table and patiently awaiting his response; to judge him based on his reaction to the news. He wanted to yell - to find some way to release the growing anger inside of him - but he did that last night, and where did it get him? Not being here when Harry needed him the most, and no matter how brave the Gryffindor appeared on the outside, Severus had no doubt he was scared.

"So what now?"

"They've paused his treatment, for the time being, and as of when you got here, Harry's downstairs getting an MRI," she stated matter-of-factly.

"So then I'll ask again," he growled, "what now?"

"I understand you're upset-"

"You haven't the slightest clue how I'm feeling!"

"You're right, I don't know exactly how you're feeling," she patronised him, "but I see parents and caregivers break apart whenever we have to deliver news like this. The first time or the hundredth, it doesn't make it any easier for us to do.

"Dr Swanson will review the results of the MRI with the neurologist and together they'll determine the best course of action for Harry. Typically what we see in situations like this is a reaction to the amount of this medication his body was receiving. Therefore, they'll delay the treatment during the diagnostic stage, then proceed with the lower dosage going forward. She may decide to extend this round longer than the twenty-four hours, but that depends on Harry's MRI, blood, and urine levels."

The professor closed his eyes tightly. "Won't a lower dosage prohibit the medication from working to its peak efficacy?"

"Yes," Kathleen answered without delay, "which is why his oncologist weighs all of the facts before making the decision. Should she find the cancer progressing at a rate warranting the risk of the neurological effects at the higher dosage, they'll counter it with another medication. In Harry's case an anticonvulsant to treat the potential seizures."

"And if it doesn't warrant it?"

"Then they'll lower his dosage for the remainder of this regimen to keep it under the threshold deemed mutually safe." She stood, signalling the end of their impromptu meeting. "Dr Swanson, or one of the on-call oncologists, will be in to discuss their findings with you as soon as they're ready. In the meantime, the notes from overnight said he hardly slept, so I wouldn't be surprised if he's a little out of it the rest of the day, especially if they needed to give him something to soothe his nerves through the MRI. That process can be daunting for anyone."

He hated waiting, an ironic trait for a spy who survived using a very similar matter: reading his audience, buying his time, then acting accordingly.

The walk to Harry's room went by in a blur of red, blue, and green. The need to do something with his pent up energy - sitting around in the young wizard's room wouldn't aid in the endeavour - grew with every shaky step he took. So by the time he reached AYA#4, two doors down from their first room, he hadn't the slightest clue of how to occupy the next hour or two. Unexpectedly, his answer revealed itself the moment he opened the door and saw the blonde sitting on the sofa gazing out of the window into the dying daylight.

"Mae?!"

Inwardly he cringed at the awkward crack in his voice, giving away his surprise in seeing her there. So focused on Harry, his forethought about Mae and Jessica went no further than assuming his girlfriend never wanted to see him again. Naturally, he planned to try to rectify the situation, but the idea of her being here never once crossed his mind since waking up that afternoon.

Equal parts of shock and anger crossed her face as she approached him. "So nice of you to finally show up." She scolded him, and he deserved it, of course.

"What are you doing here?"

"Why do you think I'm here?!" She bellowed. "He's scared, Severus! And alone… and you were nowhere to be found! I sat at home this morning dreading the mere thought of running into you if I came to see him but I wanted to check in just in case… and lo and behold, I come to find out - you never came back. You left him here! A child you promised to see through this!"

"I can explain." A lie, unless he intended to dig himself into a deeper hole.

"So where have you been for the last twenty hours?!" She demanded, but in the same breath, as she collected her coat and bag, she amended her question, "you know what? I don't want to know, and I'm not the person you have to explain that to."

"Make, please-"

She aggressively pushed past him, causing the panic inside of him to rise exponentially. The emotions brewing beneath his Occlumency shields, fighting for their rightful place out in the open, were completely foreign to him. He didn't want her to leave, that much he understood, and really it was all that mattered.

"No," she cut him off. "You're a coward, is what you are. And I just…"

Severus unknowingly held his breath waiting for her to finish her sentence. It was Lily all over again. He had one chance, made one mistake, and now he was about to lose the second woman he'd ever loved due to his own selfishness.

"I don't want you to go," the vulnerability he poured into those six words scared him as much as anything he'd done as a Death Eater turned spy. He was placing a piece of his heart with her hoping she'd give him a chance to make it right.

Audibly gulping, the steam from her anger sizzling down a bit, she crossed her arms around her stomach visibly shaken by their encounter. "You don't always get what you want, Severus," she flatly lectured. He almost preferred her loud, irate screams; those emotions he could handle. This - her obvious hurt - fell into a new and terrifying territory for him. "I didn't want you to leave yesterday, but you did... and then-" she shook her head, as if trying to permanently remove the memory of the night's events. "Listen… a lot… a lot of shite happened yesterday… the things you said… the window… the… violence, and I just… I need some time to think, alright?"

No, it wasn't alright. He was not alright.

"If you'll just give me five minutes to explain some things," he pleaded, the moment reminding him of his younger self sitting outside of Gryffindor tower begging Lily to forgive him. It might not have worked back then, but he intended to try his damnedest this time.

"You have a lot going on right now," Mae's voice uncharacteristically quivered, peering around Harry's empty hospital room making her point clear: take care of your responsibilities first. "Figure this out and then we'll talk, alright?"

"Are we…" he exhaled to ground himself, "are we going to be okay?"

"Honestly, I don't know," her eyebrows furrowed low on her face. "Tell Harry I'm sorry I couldn't stay and I'll try to stop by later… and don't worry about him, he'll be relieved to see you, trust me."

"And what about me?"

"I'll call you," she sadly responded and walked out without looking back.

Standing alone in the middle of the softly illuminated room, Severus's world came crumbling down around him and he had no one to blame but himself.