Electric Avenue by DesertPlanet
Summary: Following the disasterous Third Task, Harry begins to notice two things about himself. First: his appearence has begun to change. Second: something is very very wrong. The Cruciatus shouldn't continue to be causing him pain this far out from having received it, should it?
Categories: Parental Snape > Biological Father Snape > Severitus Challenge Main Characters: .Snape and Harry (required), Draco, Remus
Snape Flavour: Snape is Kind
Genres: Angst, Family, Hurt/Comfort, Mystery
Media Type: None
Tags: Disguised!Harry, Injured!Harry, New Identity!Harry, Physical Impairment
Takes Place: 5th summer, 5th Year
Warnings: Neglect, Out of Character
Challenges: None
Series: None
Chapters: 47 Completed: No Word count: 206126 Read: 296918 Published: 08 Jan 2021 Updated: 13 Jan 2023
Chapter 44 by DesertPlanet
“Severus! Wake up!” a voice screamed from his fireplace, shaking him from his thoughts as he brewed yet another batch of potions for the infirmary. How Poppy managed to go through so much cramp-reliever, he would never know. Or rather, he never wanted to think about it.

Quickly casting a stasis spell over the still bubbling potion, he strode into the living room from his lab, thankful he had not truly been asleep despite the hour. With only a few more days of term left, he had too much to do to even think about going to bed in a timely manner. Brewing potions was the more relaxing of the things he had to do. There was still the matter of struggling to read the atrocious handwriting of his youngest students and struggling to make sense of the thought process which went into the writing of the essays of his older ones. Then there was the matter of grading the actual tests he had been giving them over the course of the last week.

“What is it, wolf?” Severus growled upon seeing who it was in his fireplace.

“I think something’s happened to Elias,” Remus said frantically.

“What makes you think that?” Severus said skeptically, though he felt his blood run cold.

“Tonks and Kingsley were at Padfoot’s house asking him more questions about the Dursleys when suddenly they got two emergency notifications almost back to back,” Remus said before pulling his head from the flames momentarily before stepping through, gasping as though he had just run a marathon. “Someone… or something… broke through... the wards... of St. Mungo’s… and through the wards of the Ministry into the Department of Mysteries.”

Severus frowned. “In that order?”

Remus nodded before collapsing in a chair, his breathing still ragged before conjuring a glass of water.

Severus’s frown deepened, though he was less concerned now. Had the order been reversed, he would have worried someone had broken into the Ministry, a difficult yet not impossible task, utilized something from within the Department of Mysteries to find where Harry Potter was, and then apparated to St. Mungo’s. The other way around made no sense. There was no reason someone would go from St. Mungo’s to the Ministry.

“What makes you think Elias was involved?” Severus asked calmly as he walked to the kitchen drawer he had placed the watch he had spelled to monitor Elias’s vital signs during his relapse. Despite being so far from his son, he knew the charm to be active as he had routinely worn the watch for peace of mind during the first few days of his son’s hospitalization.

Remus coughed a few times as he tried to clear the soot from the fireplace from his lungs before answering. “Kingsley wondered who escaped from Janus Thickey. Apparently that’s where the first apparation took place.”

Severus froze, his fingers hovering over the watch as his heart clenched. The chances of something having happened to his son had just dramatically increased. There were very few residents in the Janus Thickey Ward outside of his son. Frank and Alice would not have had the concentration to apparate, nor would they have had the strength after so many years of being invalids. Lockhart wouldn’t even know what the Department of Mysteries looked like even if he had been there before. The other residents, he didn’t know enough about, but of the three of them, it certainly seemed as though his son was a far more likely culprit.

Fingers quivering slightly, he picked up the watch and turned its face toward him before grasping it so tightly his knuckles turned white.

The back and band of the watch were like embers against his skin, desperately trying to tell him to pay attention to it had he had it on. The face of the watch itself was flashing red and white ominously; the numbers displayed on its face rapidly flipping between the different vital signs which were out of ordinary. Even the hands of the watch had disappeared to make the data displayed more easy to read. The longer he looked at it, the less he wanted to.

HR: 27
BP: 65/45
RR: 4
O2: 72%
T: 44
MC: 93%

“It’s Elias, isn’t it?” Remus asked softly as Severus stood motionless holding the watch, his breaths oddly shallow.

Severus nodded, swallowing harshly before shaking himself and spinning on his heel, rushing over to the coat hangers by the door and grabbing his travelling cloak. If the aurors were responding, they were sure to find his...him rather quickly. Once found, they would take him back to St. Mungo’s for treatment.

Or autopsy.

Severus shuddered as he threw his cloak over his shoulder before grabbing another cloak from the rack and throwing it at the werewolf behind him. He couldn’t let himself think about the possibility of Elias being dead. He wouldn’t let himself think that. The vital signs looked bleak, but he hadn’t been taken to the healers yet. It might take a few minutes for them to get him there.

Or, even worse, he could have gotten sick and wasn’t actually the culprit behind this whole ward affair. If that was the case, Severus definitely wanted to make sure he was at St. Mungo’s and making sure his son was getting the care that he needed. In some ways, he hoped that Elias was the reason for the breach in the wards. That was much easier to think about than the idea that his health was being neglected once again by those entrusted to keep him safe.

But how could he be the one to have apparated through the wards? Through both sets of the most highly enforced and regularly maintained wards in the country, just short of Hogwarts herself? Elias wasn’t old enough to know how to apparate, nor did he have the magical strength to perform such a feat.

Why was his core’s strength so high if he had managed such a feat?

“Severus, where are we going?” Remus asked, running alongside the taller man as he nearly sprinted down the corridor and up the flight of stairs to the main entrance.

“St. Mungo’s,” Severus said by way of an answer, taking the stairs three at a time. “They’ll take him back to St. Mungo’s.”

“Hem, hem!” A distinctive high pitched voice said from the other side of the main entrance as the two men barrelled past. “And where do you think you’re -”

“Stupefy,” Severus said, whipping out his wand and pointing it at the bright pink woman as they passed.

“Severus!” Remus admonished him with wide eyes as Umbridge fell with a thud to the floor.

“I don’t have time for her bloody nonsense,” Severus said, slamming through the front doors with such force they bounced off the stonework surrounding them despite their size. “Annoying cow of a woman!”

Remus could only nod as they flew down the hill away from the castle with such speed that he was rather surprised there wasn’t a cloud of dust following them. The only time he had run out of the castle at this speed was a time he had very nearly transformed in the dorms when he was a student and hadn’t been paying attention to the time in spite of knowing exactly what day it was.

Feeling the tingle of the wards against his skin, Remus looked towards Severus who only briefly made eye contact before apparating away with a loud crack. Remus nodded towards where the other man had stood and apparated away as well, feeling the unnerving compression of the spell wrapping around him momentarily before opening his eyes and finding himself standing directly in the middle of the alley outside of St. Mungo’s.




For many decades, St. Mungo’s had stood quietly, the wards protecting her from wayward muggle eyes as they passed by what seemed to be an abandoned department store. Those muggles who tried to enter for fun found there was no way to enter the building despite occasionally throwing the odd brick or two through a window. The outside walls were covered in graffiti fitting its abandonment. Many of the local Londoners had long ago petitioned the removal of such a building, but were told that it would be impossible as the building itself was considered protected architecture.

And so it sat, undisturbed by muggles, hidden from their world while being firmly planted within it.

Until suddenly, it wasn’t.

The few people wandering the area that cold Wednesday night swore they saw the entire building flicker before hearing a loud bang from within it. It wasn’t until after the bang that insanity truly reigned in the alley surrounding the old department store. Or what seemed to be an old department store. Whatever force field had surrounded the building, whatever unearthly force had been protecting it for all these years, had disappeared in an instant.

Where once stood a derelict shopping center now stood a stately building several stories taller than its predecessor. The graffiti which had covered its walls had melted away. The broken windows and shattered glass which surrounded it had miraculously been repaired. Where once stood a shop window, a stately door stood with large letters emblazoned above it declaring the building to be St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries.

For those few who saw this impossible phenomenon and stayed in the area, they were treated to further impossibilities. Numerous figures popped into existence, their red robes swirling around their ankles as they ran into the front door of the building. Several other people appeared very near the building as well, some with extra appendages, others with seemingly no problems whatsoever, however all of them seemed to be going about their business with no knowledge that they were seen.

The building stood for less than five minutes before it was replaced with the same, derelict building that was there before. The force field had returned, keeping the people behind it hidden from view as they went about their daily lives, seemingly unaware of the normal world around them.

Before the building disappeared, two men were seen running frantically into the front door, their dark cloaks slipping into the building just as the mirage surrounding it flickered into place.




“Where is he?” Severus said, voice quaking as he leaned over the receptionist’s desk.

“Who?” the receptionist responded with a bored sigh.

“Elias Snape,” Remus said calmly, pulling Severus back before he had the chance to leap over the desk at the woman. “He was in ward 49.”

“Fourth floor on the left,” the receptionist said, waving her hand at the stairs and flipping a page of the newspaper.

“He’s not there anymore, bloody woman!” Severus growled, looking at his watch in dismay. “There is no way he’s there anymore!”

“We have reason to believe he has been moved to a different ward,” Remus said, frustration leaking into his voice.

“Sorry, we cannot tell you where he is at this time.”

“What is the point of you anyways?” Severus demanded, struggling against Remus towards the receptionist who simply waved her wand, a ward separating her from the irate family in front of her with another deep sigh.

“Remus?”

Remus’s head shot up and looked towards where he heard his name said, his eyebrows shooting towards his hairline as he realized who it was. “Tonks? Kingsley? What are you doing here?”

“We should ask you the same thing,” Kingsley said, eyes flicking towards the only barely restrained potions master and sighing.

“You said someone had broken through the wards here and … and we think we may know who it was,” Remus said calmly though he couldn’t help but feel his stomach churn as the two aurors looked at each other.

“And what makes you think that?” Tonks said, her eyes shooting towards her former potion’s master. Something was off about him, yet she couldn’t put her finger on what it could be. He normally was stoic to a fault, anger being the only emotion one could easily see him projecting. He was certainly angry, though she didn’t know why, but more than that, he seemed almost panicked. He kept looking at his wrist watch only to fight more frantically against Remus’s hold.

“My son is in the Janus Thickey ward!” Severus growled.

Kingsley’s eyes widened at the revelation that Severus’s son was a patient on the very ward the breach occurred. “How old is he?”

“He’s sixteen!” Severus said, panic leaching into his voice despite his best efforts as he looked once more at the watch around his wrist. Why had no one done anything to help him? His core’s levels were continuing to rapidly drop, his heart rate was continuing to slow, the only thing which had seemingly improved was his respirations and his oxygen levels.

“Has he ever been taught to apparate?” Tonks asked sternly, immediately shifting to interrogation mode.

“No!” Severus growled. “He wouldn’t be safe to do so.”

“Why was he in St. Mungo’s?” Tonks continued. “And in a long term ward, no less.”

“He suffers from Shervil’s Ataxia,” Remus interrupted. “He was recently admitted due to respiratory difficulties and was unable to return home after due to his condition.”

Tonks and Kingsley looked at each other briefly before nodding. “Follow us. He’s been taken to spell damage.”

“What happened to him?” Severus demanded, following the auror’s closely. “Do you know what’s happened?”


Kingsley only shook his head as he strode down the long hallway and began climbing the stairs towards the third floor. Even the healers weren’t quite sure what had happened yet, though there was talk of the boy having ingested something just prior to his apparation. The healers in Janus Thickey were in the process of counting all of their potions to make sure none had gone missing, though they weren’t sure. One of them had apparently seen him holding a vial just prior to his apparation, though she wasn’t entirely certain.

As they neared the spell damage ward, Severus’s heart sank. The doors to the ward were wide open as healers from various departments ran into and out of the room, frantically calling to one another as they tried to piece together what was going on and what needed to be done to help. Potion’s vials were floating through the air, as were rune stones and various pieces of parchment. Spells were being cast and recast as the healers ran through test after test in an effort to find out what had happened.

And there, in the middle of the fray, was Elias.

“No,” Severus whispered, his heart sinking as he took in the damage done to his son. “NO!”

“Is that him?” Kingsley asked, looking at Remus.

“Yes,” Remus said grimly, his eyes locked on the burns on the boy’s body. “What… what happened?”

“Oh Merlin,” one of the healers exclaimed, interrupting the men’s discussion, looking at a piece of parchment which had just appeared in front of him. “Get a bezoar in him, NOW!”

A jar filled with the grey stones flew through the air, a different healer grabbing it from the air and shoving one of the stones into the teen’s mouth. A pulse of magic from the boy left him arching uncontrollably on the gurney, his eyes rolling back in his head as he bit down on the stone in his mouth.

“A man claiming to be his father is here,” one of the mediwitches said, pulling one of the healers who was not actively casting spells to the side. In all her years of working at St. Mungo’s she had never seen a case like this. For a child to manage to apparate through not only the wards of St. Mungo’s herself, but the Ministry of Magic as well, the boy laying in front of them had to have been immensely powerful. Or was utilizing some sort of substance to magnify his magical abilities.

The healer nodded his head and quickly stepped out of the fray, straightening his robes before turning to the odd group which had just entered the room. There was never a point in his career he enjoyed passing on this kind of news, but now more so than ever. He pitied the healers in Ward 49 immensely, for very soon they would have to explain to probably the most fierce looking man he had ever laid eyes on how a resident in their care had come to imbibe an entire vial of Fulgur while under their observation.

Oh how he pitied them.

“Hello,” the healer said, quickly throwing up a silencing ward to separate the group from the chaos in the ward. “I’m Healer Uticar, and you are…?”

“Auror’s Tonks and Shacklebolt, sir,” Tonks said, pointing at herself and Kingsley.

“Professor Severus Snape,” Severus said, his eyes never leaving the body of his son he could just make out through the throng of people surrounding his bed.

“Remus Lupin.”

“Pleasure,” the healer said bluntly. “What is your relation to the boy?”

“He’s my son,” Severus said, his eyes briefly flicking towards the healer, the back down to the watch on his wrist, then back to his son.

“How did you know he was here?”

“That would be our fault, sir,” Tonks said, bluntly. “We received word while visiting ... Remus that the wards had been broken at St. Mungo’s and at the Ministry and it was mentioned in the alert that it had been a resident of the Janus Thickey Ward who had escaped. They managed to put two and two together and figure out who it was.”

The healer looked rather suspiciously at Remus as he pondered the reason the man would be having a social call with two Aurors in uniform before nodding finally.

“What happened to my son?” Severus demanded, his attention pulling away from where Elias lay as yet another healer joined the fray just outside the boundary of the silencing spell. His eyes burned with an intense rage that made the healer rock backwards on his heels. “He was supposed to be safe in that ward! He was supposed to be under surveillance! What. Happened.”

Swallowing hard and squaring his shoulders, the healer took a deep breath. He had no doubt in his mind that he would be requesting an escort home from the Aurors in the building if anything happened to the boy behind him. “As you are aware, he managed to apparate from St. Mungo’s to the Ministry. While this is not that far of a distance as the owl flies, he had to apparate through no less than seven different wards, splinching himself quite badly in the process as well as giving himself quite bad ward-burns. Up until just a few moments ago, we were unsure as to how he had managed to do this, however one of the mediwitches noted just before his apparation that he was holding a vial of some sort.”

The healer paused for a moment to let the information he had just given them sink in as well as allow himself time to organize his thoughts.

“What was in the vial?” the boy’s father asked, his voice gruff yet filled with worry.

“We weren’t completely sure at first,” the healer said, calmly and firmly carrying on. “However the mediwitches were able to quickly find which potion was missing from their stocks. Apparently one of the other residents had managed to get a hold of a partially full vial of Fulgur and had given it to your son in an effort to …”

“No,” Severus gasped, his heart feeling as though it had just stopped.

“We’re doing everything we can, but…” the healer sighed, and looked over his shoulder at the teen on the bed. “We’re trying, but his core is continuing to degrade. And with all of the other damage done to his body because of the apparations… It would be a strain on even a healthy core for us to do all of the necessary healing. I’m sorry.”

Remus looked frantically at Severus who looked for all intents and purposes as though the floor had just dropped out from under him and that he would collapse with even the smallest push. His shoulders were quivering and his chest heaved, though his face remained completely stoic. There was no denying the man was in shock.

“Severus?” Kingsley asked, reaching for the man’s shoulder only for his hand to be violently pushed away by the man’s barely controlled magic.

“I’ll give him mine,” Severus said after not even a moment’s hesitation. “I’ll give him my core. I don’t deserve it, he does. He deserves all the free life he can have. Please. I’ll do anything.”

“Severus! That would kill you!” Remus blurted out with Tonks and Kingsley echoing his sentiment.

“I’m sorry,” the healer said, preventing the argument from continuing any further. “That won’t work. There is simply too much Fulgur in his system right now. In order for him to survive, he would likely need multiple core transplants over the next few days. That’s if he even survives the healing.”

Remus’s eyebrows shot up as Severus let out a cry of anguish and and barely managed to reign in his magic as Tonks and Kingsley prepared to restrain the man if necessary. He was going to continue burning through any magic in his system at an insane rate, unable to be maintained by a standard core. A standard, normal human core. Even a werewolf magical core would be burned through in a matter of hours if that was the case. There was no way there would be enough people willing to sacrifice their lives to save one person, even if they did know who it was they were actually saving.

If only there was a way to continuously feed him magic as easily as it was to slowly drip potions into him.

Remus stood in silence as the healers surrounding Elias began priming muggle style tubing to slowly give him multiple healing potions intravenously. From where he stood, it looked rather like wires being inserted into the boy as though they would use him as a muggle battery. Slowly, the tubes darkened as the potions poured through them into the boy’s body, only for him to arch away from the healers as his skin once again ran over with sparks of magic.

Sparks of electricity.

“What about an… an artificial core?” Remus muttered to himself before saying it slightly louder. “What if he was attached to an artificial core?”

“Such a thing doesn’t exist,” the healer said sadly. “Even if it did, it would have to be able to consistently provide his core magic and not be influenced by the fulgur in the boy’s system. An impossibility as I’m sure you understand. There is much that is unknown about the magical core.”

Severus froze as the implication of Remus’s words finally made their way through his panicked brain. An artificial core. Elias’s electricity project. Consistent power uninfluenced by the potion. The muggles.

“Heal his body,” Severus said abruptly. “Heal his body, then release him to me. Please.”

“You understand he will die,” the healer said, frowning.

“I would like him to pass comfortably in his own bed,” Severus spat. “Not surrounded by healers he doesn’t know.”

The healer nodded and stepped out of the bubble of the silencing spell before he began rapidly speaking with the other healers in the room, many of whom ceased what they were doing and backed away. With well timed and controlled flicks of their wands, Elias’s skin began to knit itself back together, shining briefly as the potion in his system reacted with the healer’s magic. Slowly, the scars of the wards closed, leaving him looking mostly healed, though the floral burns from his magic itself were refusing to heal.

“Severus?” Tonks asked quietly from her former professor’s side. “What can we do to help?”

“Tell me,” Severus said, a sense of frantic determination leeching into his voice. “Have any anti-magic wards been added to Children’s Hospital in south-west London yet?”
To be continued...
End Notes:
phew. That was a thing. Sorry for the cliffy, but we all know where this is going. So. Hope you enjoyed! Sorry this took so long to come out.


This story archived at http://www.potionsandsnitches.org/fanfiction/viewstory.php?sid=3639