With young Harry Potter cradled safely in his arms, Snape rushed toward his quarters. He was thinking about what to do as he stormed toward his room. Perhaps a tepid bath to clean the boy of sweat and get him into dry clothing would be the best thing. He carried Potter into his room and gently set the boy down so that he could go into his private bath and fill the tub. As the water began to pour from the spigot Snape tested it with his hand to be sure that it wasn’t too cold. He didn’t want to put the boy into a state of shock, just cool him down a bit.
He returned to his bedroom and found that Potter was not lying on the bed where Snape had left him just seconds before. His heart sped up for the briefest of moments; he had only just left the child alone. He clenched his fists and exhaled a breath. Snape circled the bed and found Harry lying on the floor in a crumpled heap. He stripped the boy down to his skin and then carried him to the bath.
Although his eyes were closed in what appeared to be an uneasy sleep, Harry’s hands were entangled in Severus’s robes, and the last thing that he wanted to do was let go. When Snape began to lower Harry toward the water, Harry whimpered and tried to cling to Snape. He shivered as his hands were gently pried loose from dark robes and pressed to his chest.
As Snape carefully lowered Harry into the cool water Harry recoiled and tensed his body. Snape cradled the boy’s head as though he were an infant and began to scoop small amounts of water onto Harry’s head with his free hand.
Harry could hear the water all around him. He could feel it making his skin prickle as though he was being immersed in a tub of ice. Harry’s eyes snapped open suddenly and he grabbed for Snape. He clutched at Snape’s hand and struggled to put his feet beneath him. He wanted out of the water. The fever, despite the fact that he hadn’t had it long, was making him feel weaker than usual and he slipped roughly, sloshing water out of the tub and onto Snape. Harry sputtered as water flowed up into his nose, his mouth and even his ears.
Snape grit his crooked teeth and held Potter still. “Easy boy,” he said once some of his irritation had eased. He remembered the pouch of bath salt that sat on the stone floor the near the tub. He kept hold of Harry and used one hand to reach for a small amount of the enchanted salt. Instead of sprinkling the salt in the water Snape submerged his entire hand, allowing the salt to dissolve into the water while in his hand. The water turned a soft shade of blue and Snape watched as Harry relaxed almost immediately as the charmed salt made him feel warmer than he actually was.
Snape waited for several more minutes before palming Potter’s forehead to check on how the fever was doing. He felt a bit cooler to the touch. Gently Snape lifted the boy from the water and reached for a thick green towel to wrap him up in. Harry’s slight weight in his arms felt warm against his chest through the towel that was starting to become damp. Snape looked down at the boy’s face and frowned. So pale... Harry was so pale looking. Aside from the fever forcing heated color into his cheeks the little boy was a sickly shade of white. His water slicked black hair seemed to intensify the bad coloring of the boy’s face and even the rest of his body. He had no trace of any sort of tan lines from the sun. Had the boy ever really seen the sun?
Snape caught sight of the mirror as he strode to leave the bath. He snorted at his own sallow reflection, and had he not known better one would’ve thought he looked as bad off as the Potter boy.
When Harry woke several hours later he felt stuffy. He tried to sniff but his nose was too congested to allow him to draw in any air. He breathed through his mouth and looked around. He was dressed in a soft white shirt that didn’t fit him at all. The long sleeves, which had been rolled up, hit him at the elbow and the hem of the shirt reached nearly to his knees. The shirt might have belonged to Snape. Harry sat up, ignoring the vague pounding in the back of his head that threatened to become a big headache.
Harry tugged on the cartilage of his left ear and shook his head. He rubbed his ear roughly with his fist and frowned because it seemed to be hurting him from the inside. As Harry continued to bother his sore ear, he watched Snape as he slept for several moments. He dropped his hand from his red ear and reached for Bray, who was sitting on a pillow beside him, and hugged the rabbit close. A funny thought snuck through Harry’s mind; he wanted more than anything to climb into Snape’s lap and just sit with him. He was sure that would make him feel better for some reason.
Harry had seen Aunt Petunia hold Dudley when he hadn’t felt well, and it always seemed to make him feel much better. He fingered one of Bray’s long ears as he recalled several instances where Dudley had been comforted in such a way, sometimes when he didn’t even want to be held!
No one comforted Harry Potter when he cut his knees, bonked his head or just felt ill. Perhaps that was the way that things were meant to be. He was to look after himself. Harry had only been foolish enough to seek out his relatives for comfort a few times, and he had learned that he was much better off being ignored than bringing attention to himself.
Harry held Bray by the ear and pulled at his sore ear with his other hand as he breathed through his mouth. He slipped off the bed, leaving Snape’s warm bedding in a burrow like mass and padded over to the pale wizard dressed in black. Harry considered climbing into Snape’s lap and decided that it wasn’t worth risking rousing a foul temper.
With a hard pull at his ear he sat on the floor, leaning against the part of Snape’s armchair that led up to the armrest. He pulled his knees up and tucked the tails of his shirt beneath him to block the cold stone floor and tucked the front of the shirt around his legs. He hugged Bray and rested his chin on his knees with a lonesome sigh.
As Snape dozed he was vaguely aware of something warm pressing to his calf. Sleepily, he reasoned that it wasn’t hot enough to mean that his leg had caught fire so there was no real call to be upset. There was however something warm and damp seeping into his robes and that was not normal at all. Snape opened his black eyes and blinked before reaching up to clear away the grit that had gathered in the corners of his eyes. He stifled a yawn and glanced down to see what was making his leg feel so odd.
There leaning against his leg with an open mouth was a sleeping Harry. Snape glared at the clear trail of drool that was seeping from Potter’s mouth and led all the way to the pool on Snape’s pants. He groaned to himself. Why in Merlin’s name was the boy sleeping on the floor instead of the bed? Was that a crust around the boy’s nose that had a trail all the way to his lips?
Harry shifted slightly to reach up and scratch at his ear. When his hand pulled away Snape could see that it was bright red, and he could easily see the scratches that Harry had made that had broken through the skin.
Snape bent down and grabbed the boy beneath his shoulders, pulling him up so that he fit into Snape’s lap. Harry moaned and tried unsuccessfully to breathe air through his stuffy nose. Snape rose as he brought Potter’s body in close, holding him securely to his chest. He set the boy on the bed and placed the pillows from the head of the bed on either side of the edges to keep Harry from rolling off the bed and onto his head. Snape entered the lavatory, filled a pitcher with warm water and placed a few soft rags in a clean basin. From his cupboard above the sink Snape gathered several jars, each with a different purpose and set them in the dry basin. He carried the pitcher of water in one hand and the basin with the other as he balanced it on his hip.
He set the items on the night stand near his bed, removed the jars from the basin and set them and one dry cloth aside. He poured a good amount of the water into the basin and soaked a rag. He wrung the rag out until it was no longer dripping wet and settled himself at Potter’s bedside.
He reminded himself to use gentle strokes on the boy’s face. He didn’t want to rub the little boy’s face raw just to clean him up. Snape started by cleaning Harry’s forehead and worked his way downward to the parts that were actually dirty. He gently wiped the hard crust of mucous that had formed around Harry’s nostrils and used the rag to wipe the passages as clear as was possible. Then he gently wiped away the dried slobber on the boy’s chin.
He set the rag down and grabbed the pale green jar from the assortment of medicines on the night stand. He unscrewed the cap and the scent of menthol, eucalyptus and camphor began to fill the air. Snape put two fingers into the pasty looking goo and set the jar back on the night stand. He touched his forefinger to the top of Harry’s lip just beneath his nose and gently smeared a line of the salve there. Then he began to massage the stuff into Harry’s skin, beginning at Harry’s throat and working down to his chest.
Harry coughed as he began to breathe in the scent through his partly open mouth and he screwed up his face in a frown. The smell reminded Harry of cleaning solvents. He could feel an unnatural cool sensation spreading from his throat down to his chest. He coughed again and felt his chest burn from the inside. His throat was on fire. He couldn’t breathe through his nose, and he wasn’t home with his family; he was stuck with a dark, unhappy man. This was a miserable situation.
Snape placed two pillows under Harry’s head to keep him elevated and tucked him tightly into the bed so that he would not roll out. He grabbed the blue jar from the night stand and made a fresh pot of tea. He poured a cup and from the small blue jar he spooned out some of the ground up herb inside and stirred it up until it was blended. He spoke to Potter in a low, soft voice until the boy stirred and was aware enough to drink some of the tea without choking.
The warm liquid, though it tasted awfully bitter, felt nice as it trailed into Harry’s mouth and down the back of his raw throat. He relaxed back into the pillows when he felt he’d drank enough of the nasty tasting tea and felt mellow warmth soothing him. Even the ache in his ear seemed a little better.
Snape reached for a small jar of amber colored fluid as he set the partially drank tea down. He warmed the jar in his hands for several moments and then opened the seal. He snorted as he remembered that he had forgotten to bring some cotton with him. He kept the little jar of amber liquid in one hand to keep it warm and used his wand to transfigure one of his rags into several soft balls of cotton. He eased Harry’s head to one side, and poured a tiny amount of the warmed fluid into his ear canal. Harry winced, but didn’t cry out. Snape ripped a small piece of cotton and formed it into a ball, placing it over Potter’s ear canal to keep out the cool air from the castle. He repeated the procedure for the other ear, because he wasn’t sure if they were both infected or not.
Snape smoothed a bit of healing salve on the cartilage that Harry had clawed up with his fingernails, and then decided that he could afford to make himself a cup of tea and maybe some toast to eat. Snape realized, as he munched on his buttered toast, that he had completely forgotten to clean the drool that Potter had left on his trousers, but for some reason it really didn’t seem to matter that much.