Floating.  He was floating.  The world moving in rippling waves, swimming before his barely open eyes before the effort became too much and they closed again with a tickle of lashes against his prickling cheeks.  The warmth and comfort were still there, though the heaviness was gone and he was just... floating.  Floating with strange swaying, jerking movements.  Floating... in such a strange position.  Hadn’t he been lying flat a minute ago?  On his stomach?  He could dimly feel his body and how he was, in fact, floating on his back in a sort of upwards-facing foetal position.  Oh, he was being carried.  Well, that was good too.  Being held.  It had been so long since he’d been held, and he didn’t think he ever had been held quite like this.  He would have lifted his head if it were possible but it seemed to be made of lead and was throbbing like an open wound so he left it hanging limply where it was, neck braced on something warm and sturdy and face open to the cool air and the night sky. 

He was comfortable so there wasn’t much point in trying to move.  Somehow, he just knew he was safe.  He trusted in that safety the way he was trusting his weight to the arms of whoever was now carrying him; not entirely consciously but implicitly regardless.  He didn’t need to get away from this, he was safe and warm and comfortable and he really didn’t want to be anywhere else.

He missed that hand that had held his though.  His own felt so cold without it, in stark contrast to the rest of his body, as though it lay outside the warmth of a blanket that had him enveloped.  Something inside him thought that maybe he’d always missed that hand on his, and he always would, but the ache for it wasn’t going anywhere and was so familiar it felt like a part of him, so he didn’t fuss over its loss.  He was content enough here.  He was being held... and rocked.  Just slightly.  His eyes were closed and his breathing was slowing and he was melting into those arms that had him safely ensconced and he was being rocked and swayed.  Where the wind blows, the cradle will rock... Yes, he could happily stay here forever.  As long as he was warm.  So very warm.

Severus was a flurry of movement, striding down corridors and, after a moment of thought for the many stairs between him and the infirmary, into his rooms (fastidiously ensuring that he shut the door in Dobby’s face and hearing the squeak when the house elf didn’t notice in time), slipping his cloak from his shoulders and juggling the lax body in his arms as he did so. 

He slowed only long enough to deftly summon a towel and have it spread on the dark couch in his living room before using infinite care to lay Harry down on it where it lay before the fireplace which he had roaring with a word moments later.  With another flick of his wand the couch was morphing, collapsing and melting beneath the body it cradled until it was high enough for Severus to not have to bend at the waist to attend to Harry and the back of the couch shrunk and the opposite side grew until Harry was surrounded by padded safety rails, just in case the boy moved – Severus didn’t want him falling.  He then cast a slightly more complicated warming charm than usual on it that would heat slowly so that he didn’t send Harry’s body into shock and cast a stronger one on the padded barriers either side of the boy until he could feel the warmth radiating from them if he held his hand to where Harry’s skin came closest to them.

Peeling away the ice crusted robes and shirt that were twisted around the bloody body, Severus tried to stem the tide of admonishments in his head, berating Harry for not heeding him and Poppy for not seeing this and Dumbledore for his silence and Voldemort for his timing.  In his desperate search for the source of the bleeding he realised once the boy’s torso was bared that the blood covered him almost evenly, as though he had dozens of smaller wounds instead of one critical one, and he couldn’t fathom what could have done this or why Harry would choose that over the infirmary, avoiding the medi-witch even after being so badly injured – the boy had been outside for Merlin’s sake!  Severus was also at a loss for a moment as to how to start fixing this but, after a glance at the boy’s face which had regained only the slightest bit of colour, he reasoned he would just have to go by what he could see.  He’d heard enough of Poppy’s complaints about how standard diagnostic charms wouldn’t work.  No, not on Harry Potter.  Severus decided to ignore the fact that the thought filled him with naught but amusement and... no, just amusement.  Amusement was reasonable but he was not fond of Harry Potter so the thought couldn’t possibly have filled him with fondness.

Moving to the fireplace, satisfied to feel the prickling in his limbs that signalled the return of heat and circulation to his frozen hands and feet, Severus snatched a handful of floo powder from the mantel and threw it into the grate, calling for the infirmary before sticking his head in and calling, “Poppy!”

She appeared after a moment looking flustered.  “What Severus?  Can it wait, I’m rather busy.  And if this is about that list of potions I need, I’ve told you already that the flu season is coming and-”

“That isn’t why I’m calling.  When you have a minute I need you to come through.”  He pulled his slightly frustrated head out before he could fully register her vague look of horror at having to leave the infirmary for the dungeons.

Easily finding a cloth and filling a basin he usually kept handy and used for the preparation or application of topical potions with water which he heated with a wave of his wand and tested on the inside of his wrist, Severus moved to stand beside the makeshift bed Harry lay upon and set to work cleaning him up. 

He quickly realised while working on the blood crusted on the boy’s neck and chest that blood was dripping from Harry’s arm to splash in a dark puddle on the stone floor and he diverted his attention to cleaning that up first.  It only took a moment to realise he was cleaning a long and very deep cut down the inside of Harry’s forearm that made the limb look almost mangled and that even though the snow had slowed Harry’s blood flow and stopped his from bleeding out, it was a very near thing and Severus wondered at the boy having any blood left.  Working quickly on the arm lest the bleeding pick up in speed again – the boy had somehow managed to cut through several veins and a huge amount of flesh besides and Severus refused to acknowledge the glimpses of shining white he saw as he cleaned it – Severus cast a hasty disinfecting charm and quickly but with infinite care wrapped the arm with gauze to stem it from bleeding any further.  Satisfied that it wouldn’t need any more immediate attention Severus moved back to Harry’s neck to clean him up and determine what else needed patching back together.

It was within minutes of his careful swabbing at a patch of bloodied skin that he found the first of what he realised must have been many small incisions.  Unable to think of what could have made the cut beyond a knife he continued sweeping the cloth in the lightest of circles over the skin, turning it pink from the watery blood he was washing away and fighting the tightening in his stomach at the sight of the water in the basin becoming dark after one rinse of the cloth.

“What have you gotten yourself into this time?” He muttered to Harry as he swept lightly at the painful looking skin in a tone fraught with longsuffering forbearance, sounding far gentler than he’d meant to.  He froze, stunned, when the small cut he’d been cleaning high on Harry’s chest just below his collarbone flowed smoothly into another one at a right angle to it.  Cleaning under it as carefully as possible he found another parallel to it.  It looked almost like...

He lost none of the care from his movements but some of the efficiency as he left the skin washed in diluted blood in his haste to... what?  Prove himself wrong?  Prove himself right?  Surely no one would have... surely no one hated the boy enough to do something so horrible.  Not even ones from Slytherin.  Surely.

But there it was.

“Oh Harry.”

F.  and right beside it; R.  Next to that an E.  And pressed into the tightly drawn skin: A. 

He didn’t want to know.  Severus really, really didn’t want to know.  But before the blood had come away Severus couldn’t deny that he already knew what the last letter carved into Harry’s skin would have to be.  What else could it be?  And then he was done and he could read the word on Harry’s chest, as though someone had stamped him, branded him, just beneath the almost obscenely protruding collarbone.

FREAK. 

Someone had carved a word into Harry’s chest.  Either that of Harry himself... no.  He wouldn’t.  Someone had done this to him.  The Harry Severus had watched over his whole life wouldn’t have done this to himself.  Someone had carved words into Harry’s skin by force.  Severus’ outrage at that fact almost eclipsed just what word it was.  No one carved words into his... what?  Charge... yes, because Harry was his charge.  He had been charged with the care of Harry Potter when he was a baby and, as such, had become his charge and to say that Harry was his boy wouldn’t be right, would it?  To feel so defensive of the child he’d been protecting for almost as long as said child had been alive would only be natural.  None of that mattered half as much though, and was swept aside far easier than the blood Harry was caked in because whoever had done this to him would pay and holy hell, Severus had just found another cut. 

His fury was such that he was sure he’d never felt its like before, his hands shaking with it and he longed for something to take it out on but he had a job to do and that was to take care of Harry.  Harry came first.  As Severus read the words carved into the boy’s skin he vowed that Harry would come first.

He only got so far as dabbing at the second set of cuts once before his floo was spitting Poppy onto his hearth and he was hurling a wordlessly transfigured bed sheet across Harry, feeling a fierce surge of protectiveness that wouldn’t allow Harry to be seen in the state he was in.

“Alright Severus, what was important enough to warrant leaving a wing full of students with house elves?”

Severus stepped away from Harry – ignoring his own reluctance because Harry needed all the help he could get and Severus feeling possessive was utterly ridiculous – and allowed Poppy to see him.  Even with the sheet covering him from the neck down and Severus’ ministrations, Harry looked terrible; still deathly pale, lips still a little blue and face smeared here and there with his own blood.  The mystery afforded by the sheet only made the image worse but Severus knew nothing Poppy’s imagination could provide would be worse than the reality of what had been done to the boy.

“Oh, not again,” Poppy muttered and Severus bristled a little – she was blaming Harry?! – but her tone was full of compassion and self-recrimination more than anything as she bustled her way to where Harry’s head lay and began performing routine diagnostics out of habit.  “Where was he when you found him?  How long ago?  Hypothermia...” she added muttering, “Don’t tell me he was out there in that blizzard?”

She began to lift the sheet before Severus’ hand stopped her.  She turned surprised eyes on him.

“The state he’s in Severus, I have to examine him.”  Severus looked at her a moment longer before sighing a little.

“I know,” he said, removing his hand from hers.  “You should brace yourself.”

She gave him a funny look but nodded before lifting the sheet, far more tentatively than before.  When she saw the cleaned letters on his chest and the amount of blood still to be washed away her eyes threatened to bug out of her head and her voice became breathless.  “Merlin...” 

“Until I knew what else was under the blood I thought it would be best to avoid magic,” Severus said, lifting the basin of water and the cloths draped over its edge and flicking his wand once it was set down to replace the dark run off with cleaner, warmer water.

“Yes,” Poppy agreed faintly, eyes fixed on Harry’s chest where the only uncovered word was beading blood sluggishly, the vertical lines written in Harry’s own hand shining in the firelight.  Transfiguring herself a stool on the opposite side of the cot to where Severus was standing she sat beside the makeshift bed and began cleaning Harry of the blood with faster, well-trained strokes that belied the shell-shocked look on her face as Severus started swabbing almost tenderly at Harry from the other side of the cot.

“Harry said you let him leave the infirmary on Tuesday.”  Severus tried not to sound accusatory, he really did.  Judging by the look Poppy sent him he assumed he’d failed.  It wasn’t anger or irritation though; she looked guilty. 

“I didn’t let him leave,” she said, sounding as if she was trying to justify it to herself and failing.  “I meant to catch up with him after the horde was dealt with.”

“He mentioned having slipped away while you were busy with a Quidditch accident.”

Poppy nodded, her eyes faraway as she dabbed and wiped away the blood soothingly with the odd reassuring pat despite knowing Harry couldn’t feel it in the state he was in.  “I should have known he would leave at the first opportunity.  I would have sought him out the next time he was in the Great Hall but I haven’t been to any meals since.  Before the Hufflepuffs hurt during Quidditch were ready to leave I had an outbreak of stupidity in the dorms.  Fifth year, Ravenclaws.  If it’s not one thing it’s another.”

Severus rolled his eyes.  “Was it the boys experimenting again?”

“No, they haven’t tried anything since the eyebrow incident.  It was the girls this time.  Fused their stockings to their legs in an attempt to create the next fashion revolution.”  Severus lifted an eyebrow and Poppy regained enough of her equilibrium to give him a scathing look.  “Obviously not the most pressing issue but with a skin transfiguring potion in their systems I couldn’t leave them alone to attend a meal where Harry may or may not have been.”

Severus sighed.  “I apologise, you should not always be solely responsible for Harry’s welfare.”

“Careful Severus, you’re letting your concern show again.”  He graced her with a glare that held no heat causing her to chuckle before directing her attention back to Harry again.  “How does this keep happening to him?” She despaired absently.  Severus didn’t answer.  He didn’t know.

By the time Poppy declared that Harry could be moved to the infirmary, the sun had risen – though it was still quite early – and Severus had made them both three cups of tea, deciding that the more of Harry that was uncovered by his own blood, the more they would need.  He hadn’t been wrong.  Seeing the sheer amount of letters that had been carved into his charge was disturbing – infuriating, rage inducing, and, in Poppy’s case, tear-jerking – enough without taking into account what the words were.  Someone would pay dearly for this. 

They had been over every inch of the boy’s body and both felt like they were drowning in their shared mire of guilt and grief and disgust at who could have done this to a fifteen year old.  Though Poppy was the most outwardly effected in that her face was noticeably tear-stained, Severus was equally pale, his eyes were hard and his jaw stayed perpetually – and rather painfully – clenched to repress anything but those feelings might help Harry.  He could indulge in his own reactions later. 

In any case his mind was entirely occupied with what he’d found on the boy’s back.  The serious, dangerously far along infection was bad enough and had taken Severus quite awhile to clean, drain, disinfect and bandage.  Poppy had seen the raw, weeping wounds (the words unreadable through the infection) and had needed to excuse herself, leaving Severus to finish Harry’s back alone for which the man was grateful because he hadn’t been able to control his expression as easily when he’d cleaned the words enough to make them out.

 If the words were to be believed, the state of Harry’s body might be the least mangled part of the boy.  He had been freezing to death under a mound of snow when Severus had gotten to him.  Why?  Just how much of Harry would be left if... when he woke?  Given another few hours he may well have succumbed to blood poisoning if not for the hypothermia slowing his blood flow considerably;  now he would almost certainly wake and eventually recover, though even magic had its limits.  But his mind... Severus could only imagine what could have been done to his mind and, on anyone other than him, Severus’ expression at that moment might have been labelled fear.  I will not attempt to close my mind.  Severus was beyond fury and the anger was now something solid and cold and bitter in his chest that would be remedied only when he was able to take it out on whoever was responsible.  Violently.  And he had a feeling, after much introspection – necessary to calm himself as he worked on Harry – that he knew who that ‘person’ was.  Especially considering the fact that obtaining blood quills – and there was no doubt one had been used here, Severus knew Harry’s handwriting after five years of Potions essays – was easiest for ministry employees, what with the amount they still managed to find and confiscate and keep where only they could access them.

Before Poppy could lift her wand for a locomotor mortis Severus was drawing a still-limp Harry carefully into his arms and at Poppy’s look of incredulity he raised a brow and she understood perfectly; both of them had reached new levels of protectiveness for the boy in the last few hours; neither had been immune to just how fragile he’d looked in his emaciated state while bodily covered with someone else’s cruelty.  Severus waited as Poppy threw floo powder into the grate and spoke their destination before he stepped in, shielding Harry’s head against his shoulder so that the boy didn’t inhale any soot or hit his head on the mantel.  And if his hand stroked through Harry’s hair and cradled Harry’s head in his large palm for longer than necessary, well, that was completely accidental.