The Great Hall was alight with the summer sun shinning down from the enchanted ceiling, casting the students into stark relief as their eyes practically glowed with the ending of the school year. Only days remained of the final term and even the coming exams and the still looming threat of the Dark Lord couldn’t diminish the happy chatter.

Behind his glasses, Albus Dumbledore twinkled brightly at the assembled witches and wizards, a smile wide as he hid the now constant thrumming of tension in his body.

Beside him, Minerva McGonagall sipped at her red wine, her mouth set in its usual stern uplift as even she could not help but get caught up in the students’ joy. It had been some time since the hall had been awash with as much laughter.

The reason for the higher than usual spirits, aside from the nearing holiday, sat central amongst the Gryffindor table. Harry Potter put down his glass of Pumpkin juice for the third, or perhaps fourth, time and answered the seventh request for a retelling. Apparently, it was not every day that a student prevented a Dementor attack on the first years. Harry almost wished he hadn’t done anything. He really would have liked to actually eat the food in front of him, before Ron Weasley did.

There was, however, one person in the hall that neither glowed nor twinkled and had also not touched the food on the table. Severus Snape stared blankly ahead of himself, which was more than a little unusual and would likely have been picked up by any number of the staff, especially the Headmaster and his Deputy, if the man’s face weren’t displaying his customary scowl. It happened, although he had no knowledge of it, that his eyes were narrowed and pointed directly towards the space Harry Potter occupied. It was for this reason that nobody paid him much mind, despite his having not moved for over half an hour.

It was unlikely, however, that even if his out of character actions, or lack of actions, had been noticed, he would have been able to respond to any enquires. His body may have sat in the Great Hall, but his mind was far away and seemed disinclined to return any time soon. Stuck in reruns of the night before, the smells of the chicken roast had taken on a much more sinister scent; burnt flesh, still smoking long after life had fled for safer ground. The child giggles had become the haunting sounds of manic laughter and the echoes of heart wrenching screams. The sunlight around him was the bright flames of a roaring fire and when his eyes had, as he’d first taken his seat, fallen on his wine glass, all he had seen was blood.

He didn’t come back to himself until the hall began to empty and Hagrid, a little too eager to return to his current pet project, tipped his chair sideways and into Severus’s arm. The apology was met with a snarl as he threw down his unused napkin and rose to leave the cleared table behind. That he had neglected to eat even a little, did not concern him; he had no doubts that anything he might have ingested would surely have made a reappearance after his latest flashback, and such weakness was for fools. The loss of one meal would not kill him, after all, and more than food he needed sleep if he was to stop the same happening again; occlumency required more concentration than he had been able to give it all day, and he needed more rest to organise his thoughts satisfactorily. And no order to his thoughts, and drifting out of focus, well, that really could get him killed.

It would, perhaps, have been okay; the one moment of near weakness forgotten, if it had been only one moment. But as the days passed, Severus found that meal times became more of a chore than marking Hufflepuff essays. Invariably the mixture of scents and students would quail most of the little appetite he had and on the odd occasion that he might have forced something down, a later summoning would quickly rid him of anything not yet digested.

Too busy with his revision heavy classes, the Dark Lord and the Order, he failed to really notice how many meals he lost, putting down his low energy levels to his full schedule and the stress of his not too secure role as spy.

He might have gone on not noticing his deteriorating health indefinitely, had a particularly hard summoning not been followed by a long winded Order meeting, subsequent near duel with Sirius Black, a full day of teaching and a Fifth year Gryffindor-Slytherin practical lesson.

As it was, he was presented with the facts in a rather harsh and undeniable manner.

***

Harry watched the Slytherin side of the room carefully, and only when he was sure they were all concentrating on their own potions, did he drop his eyes to his cauldron. Snape had already docked scores of points from Gryffindor and an explosion caused by a Slytherin prank would have definitely earned at least Harry a detention, if not the whole of Gryffindor House.

Hermione hummed intently beside him, and he shot her a glance. With a gesture of her hand, he realised he was late in adding the tea grass, and hastily threw it in, stirring counter-clockwise and hoping the timing wasn’t too important.

Nothing boiled over, over steamed or blew up, and he heaved a quiet sigh of relief.

“He looks even thinner than last week.” Hermione whispered as she lent across him for an extra table clamp. With care, Harry followed her eye line and had to admit, however grudgingly, that her sudden concern for Snape wasn’t unmerited. It wasn’t the first time his friend had made such a remark, and Ron had already grown sick of hearing about the greasy git. Harry, however, had shown an interest, albeit distractedly, early on and Hermione assumed that meant he cared as much as she did. He didn’t, but he was no stranger to a lack of food, and he had noticed the signs in his Professor’s body.

The man had never been fat, and Harry doubted that if the man had ever been a child, he had been a chubby one. However, the sharp cheek bones had become sharper and the thin waist he knew for a fact some of the upper years envied, had shrunken even smaller. The man’s clothes didn’t hang off him, like Harry’s did when he returned from Summer Holidays with the Dursleys, but then Snape was an adult Wizard and could easily charm his outfits to fit.

He knew Snape hadn’t been eating meals in the Great Hall, because as well as pointing out Snape’s physical appearance, Hermione had been observing and relaying his eating habits to Harry, at least the ones she could see. There were occasions the man wasn’t present at meal times, and Harry assumed he ate in his office, or his dungeon dwellings, or wherever the man slept between detentions.

Harry didn’t see, really, where he came into all of this. He wasn’t sure what Hermione expected him to do with the extra knowledge he had of Snape’s dietary behaviours, and why she thought it should interest him at all.

On a purely individual note, it helped him to remember he wasn’t alone in not always eating regular and fulfilling meals. And with the summer growing ever closer, he knew he’d soon be missing out on food himself. However, there was no lack of food for Snape to gorge himself on, so really, there wasn’t much similarity there at all. Which suited Harry fine; he preferred to think of himself as being as different to Snape as Ron was to Malfoy.

The part of him that had suffered under Snape’s biased teaching and more than unfair punishments, quite enjoyed the secret thought that perhaps the man had been cursed by something and was slowly dying from forced starvation. He never dwelled on that part of him. It sounded far too like Dudley for his liking and much too similar to some of his visions for him to be comfortable with. He didn’t really enjoy the suffering of others, even if it was Snape.

There was another part of him, the part he was sure Hermione had focused on, that actually did have a little concern for his Professor. He remembered the night after Voldemort’s resurrection; Snape’s returned mark, and Dumbledore’s not so subtle sending of Snape back to him. He also remembered the few times he had caught sight of the man at Grimmauld Place during the second half of the last summer when the Order had convened, and the overheard snippets of the former Death Eater’s reports. He could quite comfortably qualify this little concern as befitting any member of the Order, who was working towards Voldemort’s downfall. Especially their sole spy, as surely, with Snape out of action they would have no accounting of Voldemort’s movements.

Unfortunately, while Hermione had returned to her cauldron and continued the steps towards a perfect Filagee Solution, Harry had been distracted by his thoughts and missed one very crucial stage of stirring.

Grey-Blue smoke filled the air about him and he hurried to banish the burnt mess before it did worse than smoke and Snape expelled him. Of course, even with the ruined potion gone, he wasn’t free of Snape’s ire and the man jumped from his chair and bore down on him like the Hogwarts Express, charging through the lines of desks.

“Mr Potter, this is a revision session, surely even your severely limited skills in potion making can cope with re-brewing an already completed potion.” The words were growled in the typically terrifying tone and Harry probably would have backed up automatically had he not noticed that his Professor was becoming increasingly whiter the closer he got. Hermione appeared to have noticed that too, as her lips were drawn into a concerned line, and her hands twitched by her side, as though aching to reach out and steady Snape as he swayed.

What Harry did next, he would later put down to a mix of the effects of Hermione’s pleading expression, the knowledge of just what it felt like to be the object of humiliation, and a sudden awareness of the dangers of a man in Snape’s position showing any weakness.

Grabbing his wand in his hand, he fired a blasting hex at one of the places he knew the imbedded sprinkler spells had been placed in the ceiling (a throwback knowledge from so many potions lessons with Neville) which caused a sudden and heavy downpour of water to fill the room. As had happened every other time the spell had been activated, the students rushed to leave the room, until only he, Snape and Hermione remained.

Harry was prepared for the older wizard’s anger, his pure fury at Harry’s actions, and possibly even a physical reaction this time around, although if he had thought carefully, he would have realised the minor likelihood of the latter based on the reason for his actions in the first place.

What he hadn’t prepared for was the way the Potion’s Master stayed utterly silent, hair soaked and flattened against his face and barely seemed to notice anything happening around him. The short, panting breathing that could be heard, suggested to Harry that the man was trying very hard to get control over his body, but the more obvious sway announced that it was a losing battle.

“Hermione, I think you should get Madame Pomfrey.” The words had barely left his lips by the time Hermione was out of the door and running up the corridor. Thankfully, she had thought to close the classroom door behind her, because not a minute later, Snape lost the fight with himself and crumpled towards the flagstones in a faint.

Harry’s arms caught the slight figure before he had even given the movement any thought, stopping Snape’s downward momentum before he could hit the ground hard.

He would have been more surprised that Snape’s dead weight hadn’t simply toppled them both over, if the Slytherin hadn’t felt so very thin.

He wasn’t skeletal, which for some reason reassured Harry, but as he lowered his Professor gently to the floor, he could feel through the thick robes that whatever weight Snape may have had, he had certainly lost it.

His bones weren’t prominent, but there seemed little more than muscle keeping them that way.

Sitting on the floor, wet and with his equally wet and hated Professor lying against him, Harry had to conclude that this was shaping up to be the strangest end of year to date. And that was definitely saying something.

Snape’s pitch black hair managed to make his already too white skin look sallower and more corpse like than ever before, and flashes of Cedric’s paling body assaulted him suddenly.

With jerky movements, he pushed the lank locks out of Snape’s face, until the contrast wasn’t quite so evident, and moved his gaze to the door, hoping the school nurse didn’t take too long in coming. He was torn; waking up could only be a good thing for the man, but Harry feared that if he did while still on the floor, You-Know-Who would lose his favourite enemy to his supposedly loyal follower.

***

When he woke up, Severus was aware of two important things; he could not remember anything between his last class and the current instant, and the bed he lay on was not his own. Neither were particularly comforting, and sent a faint surge of panic through him. He had never before suffered from memory loss and it was a spectacularly dangerous ailment to develop now.

Blinking his eyes open, the half light from the decorative window told him that he was in the infirmary and that at least one day had passed without notice. He only hoped that it was Thursday afternoon, or else this was all much more serious than he had thought.

He took a moment to categorise every feeling in his body; he didn’t feel any pain, no nausea, and no aches that would imply healed injuries. Confused, and if he would ever admit to it, a little worried, he pushed himself up until he rested against the head of the bed. That brought on the missing nausea and the familiar dizziness. It did not, unfortunately, bring forth any epiphanies as to what had happened to him.

Bracing himself, Severus used the bed to lever his way to standing. He felt weaker than he had in sometime, and part of him wanted nothing more than to fall back into bed and sleep away more of the week.

However, he had classes and duties and potions that needed to be brewed and rest was not for the wicked, as they said.

Severus had long believed that Madame Pomfrey had a spell set upon all the infirmary beds that alerted her the moment one became unoccupied without her permission, and this theory was once again supported by the nurse’s appearance beside him, before he had moved more than five steps towards the door.

“Severus! Where do you think you’re going?” Pomfrey didn’t feel her question warranted an answer, which was good, as Severus didn’t feel like giving one that wasn’t loaded with sarcasm. “Get back into that bed this instant.” The command was accompanied by a firm grip on his elbow and before he had a chance to complain he was pushed back onto the bed.

“Madam…”

“Oh no, Severus, that tone won’t work on me. You are staying right there until I’m assured you’re well enough again to leave. You gave Mr Potter quite the scare, poor lad.”

Severus’s eyebrows crinkled in frustration. He hadn’t been sick, had he? It seemed unlikely; he was hardly ever ill and surely he would have noticed himself. And what did Potter have to do with anything? He searched hard in his more recent memories, but could still find nothing to explain what had happened. He sighed silently, he had sacrificed so much for this war, it seemed only fitting that he’d do the same with his pride now.

“Must you fuss, Madam? Just tell me what’s wrong and I’ll brew something for it, you know I have no time for laziness.”

He was confused further, when a stronger look of concern crossed the witch’s face. “That’s the problem, I think, Severus. You haven’t been taking enough time for yourself.” She left after that, and Severus sneered in annoyance. The Headmaster’s penchant for riddles was apparently contagious.

He waited almost three hours before rising again. The nurse would be eating in the Great Hall about now, which meant he had mere minutes in which to make his escape. He had taken the time to study the empty potion vials beside the bed, and knew he had been given a mixture of nutrient and energy potions. He would keep that up; it should appease the nurse and prevent whatever it was she believed he’d had from reappearing.

He failed to eat again that night, and the next, and by the time the school year had finished, he was getting by on little more than plain toast and the odd nutrient potion when it looked as though the nurse would complain.

He had no more memory blanks and if he saw the looks passed between the golden boy and his know-it-all friend, he misinterpreted and all but ignored them.

***

Harry was more than grateful to be away from the Dursleys’ and spending the last month of the holiday with Sirius at Grimmauld Place. It had been better this year, he’d known it was only two weeks, and somehow that had made all the difference in the world to dealing with his ‘family’.

Currently, he was torn between finding Sirius and asking for a game of wizarding snap before the evening’s Order meeting, or actually attempting his Charm’s assignment. Wizarding Snap won out, not wholly surprising, and he left his room in search of his Godfather.

By the time he’d reached the first floor, he knew where the man was, the sound of his voice bounced around the walls and joined with a similarly loud one.

He found Remus standing outside the kitchen door, obviously listening to the argument and waiting for the safest point to interrupt.

“Hello Harry.”

“Professor. How long have they been at it?”

“It’s Remus, Harry; I’m not your Professor anymore.” Remus offered a warm smile. “Professor Snape has been here for at least fifteen minutes, I don’t doubt they’ve been fighting since then.”

Harry smiled back at him, it was probably true, he had lost count, last year, the number of fights the two wizards had engaged in. Truly, it put Malfoy and him to shame; they would probably never reach such a high level of antagonism.

There was a sudden quiet from behind the door, and Harry exchanged a look of concern with the older wizard. Both looked back at the door, and Remus, after pulling his wand out, opened to door and stepped inside.

Harry had a fleeting image of blood splashed across the walls, and the remains of his Godfather and his Professor spread across the kitchen floor. However, when they entered, they found Sirius alone staring with confusion at the fireplace.

“Where’s Severus?” Harry probably imagined the wariness in Remus’s voice, although, given his own previous thoughts, perhaps he hadn’t.

“He left.”

Remus definitely looked worried now.

“He…left?”

“One minute he was snarling at me, the next he floo’d away.”

Harry raised an eyebrow.

“Was he summoned?”

“I don’t…no, usually the slimy git grabs his arm when that happens, or at least tells us to let Albus know.” Sirius didn’t even sound like his usual self when he spoke of Snape; that managed to make Harry worry even more.

“What did you say to him?” Lupin dropped into one of the chairs, Harry and Sirius following suit.

“Nothing. I mean, of course I said some things; the old bat needed taking down a peg or twelve. Besides, usually he just spits his flames back. But I don’t know. I told him he was looking more vampiric than usual, and suggested that perhaps his Master’s meals weren’t good enough, and he should consider eating normal food like the rest of us.”

Remus looked at his friend in disbelief. Harry suspected that Sirius had misinterpreted the look when he replied with; “I know, I know, I was just setting myself up for canine and rat jokes, but it was an easy shot. He really isn’t looking well.”

Harry frowned, remembering the last time he had actually seen his Professor, just days after the ‘incident’, as he had phrased it. He hadn’t received any reprisals, which led him to believe that Snape likely hadn’t remembered the incident at all. There was no other explanation, really. But he had assumed the man had been getting help. Harry had seen Madam Pomfrey watching Snape, and Snape had looked a little better.

He hesitated before telling the two men in front of him. There was no love lost between them and the Slytherin after all, but if Snape was now reacting to even mentions of eating, he wasn’t getting enough help.

“Hermione said he hadn’t been eating, the last few weeks before the end of term. And he, well, he…” fainted. “collapsed in one of the last Potions classes. Madam Pomfrey said she would sort him out, but I don’t think she did.” Harry paused, wondering again just why he cared quite so much, and how well Hermione knew him, that she had always assumed he would. “He needs help.”

The ‘from us’ was left unsaid, but heard all the same, and Harry hoped that with the adults involved again, maybe things would work out right, before another ‘incident’ occurred. He left Sirius and Remus discussing the Potions Master and went to dig out his Charms textbook. He wasn’t in the mood for exploding snap anymore.

***

Severus looked at the full plate in front of him and then glared at Molly Weasley’s turned back. He never stayed for the meals after the Order meetings, but Lupin had insisted he had something important that needed discussing, and of course it had to wait until after the werewolf had eaten.

Which obviously meant that he couldn’t wait in the library in peace, oh no, Black didn’t want to let him out of his sight while in the house. And with Albus staying, he couldn’t even lie about previous dining arrangements. This might just have been okay, if Molly served meals in the way of Hogwarts, but she didn’t and that left him with a plate overflowing with food, and his usual lack of an appetite.

He briefly considered simply vanishing the contents away; he’d done so before, at Hogwarts and during Malfoy’s seemingly endless dinner parties. But when Lupin’s eyes weren’t on him, Black’s were, and he refused to give his childhood bullies something more to use against him.

He brought the first bite up to his lips, chewed and swallowed and tried very hard to enjoy it, after all, everyone knew how delicious Molly Weasley’s cooking was. Besides, he could probably do with some food soon anyway, although a slice of toast while he worked was more his preference. He wondered how long it had been since he’d last eaten such food, a few days at least. He shook away a niggling doubt that it had been longer and forced more food into his mouth.

He didn’t see the triumphant smiles Lupin and Black shared while he ate, or the frown that had settled on Potter’s features. His innate denial that his eating habits had been suffering for weeks caused him not to consider the repercussions of suddenly eating a full and heavy meal.

There was, however, one person at the table that had noticed, and did acknowledge such a problem and was currently hoping he was wrong.

***

Harry approached the Professor’s room quietly. He had watched after dinner finished, the way the man had seemed in pain. He’d been half expecting it, after the meal Snape had eaten, and half hoping it wouldn’t happen. He wasn’t yet ready to question why he’d had such a hope only that seeing the man suffer in a way he was familiar with, had touched something inside him that he usually reserved for when Ron was sick, or when he’d seen Sirius suddenly not a murderer and surrounded by Dementors.

Not entirely inept at Potions, Harry had noticed the strong sleeping potion Snape had taken before retiring, under the Headmaster’s orders, in one of the guestrooms.

But he had also heard the whimpers, which had scared him more than Voldemort. Professor Snape was not allowed to whimper. It was bad enough that Hermione’s concern and Snape’s problems had made Harry suddenly consider the older wizard human, rather than another slimy snake. But this, hearing the normally stoic, if easily angered, wizard whimpering in his sleep was something different, something too close for comfort and something he could not ignore, though he had tried for quite some time before leaving his room.

Turning the door’s handle, Harry was surprised to feel the weight of several strong wards under his hand. He frowned, he could feel them, could…read them, and besides a few locking charms, there was one for privacy and the always handy silencing spell. And yet, the handle turned for him, and he had been able to hear Snape from his room next door. Outside of the wards.

It didn’t make sense right then, but later he would read a book outside of the required reading list, and it would tell of the few occasions that even the strongest wards would fail for just one individual, if the caster’s subconscious was screaming out for help. But not knowing this, he pushed the strangeness aside and entered the darkened room.

The whimpers were quiet, but noticeable in the silent house, and with no small amount of hesitation, Harry crept towards the large bed, and the figure huddled in it.

A wave of his wand set a small candle alight on the bedside table and threw a band of light across Snape’s form.

He looked small, Harry thought, and that scared him too. Small, and in pain, and so very thin. He wondered a moment, how this had come about, but another whimper tore him away from his questions; what mattered was here and now and that involved stopping the man’s pain, if only for one night.

He remembered the few times he had been in the same position and the way that he had been most helped. He could, of course, simply spell away the contents of Snape’s stomach, but something told Harry that the Slytherin could really do with what little good could come from the food. Which left the one action he was still gearing himself up for; applying heat. Madam Pomfrey had charmed a heating pack to stay warm throughout the night, as it would apply the right amount of pressure and heat, but a heating pack he did not have, and neither had Ron that second year in the Dormitories.

With a silent prayer to whatever would hear it that Snape’s sleeping potions lived up to their promises and a whispered spell, Harry knelt on the edge of the bed, and reached his warmed hands out towards Snape.

His hands found the man’s stomach through the dark t-shirt and through the tension in the muscles he could tell exactly where the food lay. The man’s belly was practically concave and tight with the cramps that rhythmically rippled through it in time with the pain filled sounds Snape issued.

He sat for quite some time on that bed, his hands only a thin strip of material away from touching the feared Potions Master. And while he gradually eased his Professor’s discomfort, Harry worked on a plan for the next few weeks. He was going to pay back the debt he owed for all the times he should have died and Snape had saved him. He was going to save Snape’s life, hopefully before the Slytherin knew it needed saving.

***

Severus wasn’t certain when it happened. But at some point he had lost his edge with Potter. The boy just didn’t fear him as he once had. It was possible that meeting face-to-face with the Dark Lord had convinced the young wizard that his Professor was not the most terrifying being on the planet, but Severus doubted that explanation a little. He had no other theories, however, and neither the time nor inclination to think of some.

He began to notice not more than a few days after the ‘Great Molly Weasley Disaster’ as he had dubbed it; the night Molly’s cooking had made him ill enough to bend to Albus’s will, and seek a potioned night of sleep in the Order’s Headquarters.

Potter had caught him using Black’s library for research, and instead of turning tail, had proceeded to enter the room and settle in one of the other chairs, balancing a stacked plate of biscuits on the small footrest between them.

The boy had been quiet and evidently deeply involved in his textbook, and Severus had gradually fazed him out of his conscious thoughts. It wasn’t surprising then, that he’d jumped slightly when Potter’s voice broke through his concentration. And to offer him a biscuit of all things. He had refused most severely and returned to his work, only to be disturbed again by another offer and the piteous complaint that if the biscuits weren’t finished off, Molly Weasley would likely feed them all twice as much that night.

And he hadn’t wanted that, not at all, not after the last time, and once again he would have been forced to stay that night, he was sure, if Molly deemed it necessary. So in the name of getting some peace and quiet, Severus had accepted the next offer and eaten a few of the cinnamon snaps.

Similar instances had occurred throughout the week, with more frequency until the Gryffindor was foisting snacks and sweets on him at least three times a day.

And if that had not been enough to raise within him the suspicion that Potter had lost his fear, when the mutt and the werewolf had moved away for a week on a mission too secret for the likes of him, the boy had begun cooking Severus meals. Nothing too large, or too fancy, but considering the brats low grades in Potions, he was surprisingly good with spices. Not that cookery and Potions were in anyway similar, not where it counted. But it was surprising.

Perhaps more surprising was that he was eating the food Potter made. The broths sat easily in him in a way Molly’s food hadn’t, and the boy’s incessant chatter while they ate kept him from losing himself in the memories that left little desire for food.

And even now, with Black and Lupin returned, he still found himself pulled into the kitchen by Potter’s offers and the knowledge that he would like what was there. And once again, his plate was empty before he expected and his mind was occupied by the discussion of the Protean shield Potter kept drawing him into.

His cheeks were fuller too, though he hadn’t noticed a difference before so was unlikely to make such a comparison himself, and his clothes had required a resizing upwards instead of down. He wondered idly if the loss of Potter’s fear had actually decreased his own stress level.

He found he might actually miss these meals when the school year started, and then chastised himself for a fool and vowed to ensure that during the school year he would make an effort to regain the little enjoyment he had once had for meal times in the Great Hall. Obviously that was all he had been missing, and Potter had temporarily filled that gap. It definitely had nothing to do with the boy himself.

***

“Professor Snape’s looking better.” Hermione commented in low tones as she reached across Harry for the pepper.

Harry glanced up at the staff table and watched the Professor add more potato to his plate not breaking off from his conversation with Professor Sprout.

“Yes, he does, doesn’t he?” Harry didn’t drop his, admittedly smug, smile even when Snape scowled deeply at him. He couldn’t; between the glare and the snarl, the Slytherin had taken a large bite of roast chicken and Harry couldn’t help feeling a little proud.