-II-

Alastor smirked in his whisky glass.

"I didn't, Dexter," huffed Poppy. "I would have loved to have stopped them, but as the only woman in this family, I had no chance." She looked accusingly from Alastor to Dexter and back.

"Oh my, and now she has back-up from her sisters. Beware, you three," Dexter said, amused.

"You are unbelievable, Dexter. Maybe you should stop drinking," Clara said and grabbed Dexter's glass of scotch out of his hand.

"As long as I have you, I'm happy," Dexter teased her and pulled her into a kiss.

It was amusing to see Dexter distract the other, but soon Severus hardly could stop himself from scratching at his chest. The Floo powder really seemed to make his rash worse. "I need to go to the bathroom."

"I will come with you," Harry quickly said, happy to escape all the Healers before Poppy would send him to Thomas.

"And I always thought only women went together to the loo," Thomas stated, amused.

Both Severus and Harry blushed and quickly left. As Lotte moved to show them the bathroom, Severus quickly said, "Third door down the hall. I still know where it is."

-II-

"Merlin, I'm so doomed!" Severus let himself sink down against the door of the bathroom.

"You're doomed? What about me? They want to clear my lungs, and Poppy didn't say that it would be painless like she always does when something is harmless."

Severus scratched at his chest. "It's not painful."

"But? I'm sure there is a 'but.'"

"It's...uncomfortable. You need to cough up all the mucus Thomas loosens in your lungs. He will give you a potion, and then you have to cough it all up. You better relieve yourself before he does it or you will embarrass yourself by peeing in the bed."

"What? Are you kidding?"

Severus shook his head and stopped scratching. His fingers hurt, and he had problems stretching them. Maria would kill him if she found out about it. He needed to stretch his fingers, but it was so damn painful. He looked up when he heard splashing. He rolled his eyes when Harry tried to get out every last drop. The cool water Severus let run over his hands helped the pain in his fingers, but as soon as he moved them they hurt again.

Back in the living room, Severus knew immediately that the mood had drastically changed. Poppy looked stern and came to them. "Harry, please stay here, I need to speak with Severus."

That was not good. Severus looked accusingly over to Janus, but the man lifted his hands in defense. "It wasn't me, Severus. I ask them to give you a bit more time. I was out-voted."

Severus looked up at Poppy, who now had a death grip on his arms as if she feared he would run. Not that that was not thinking about it at the moment.

After Poppy had questioned him and he had confessed everything from his rash to his fingers, Poppy announced, "I will go and get Thomas and Janus now."

"No, Poppy, please. Can't you heal me?"

"Severus, when we are in a house with class eight Healers, I most certainly will not try to heal you on my own. I can't detect what's causing the rash. If you don't want me to perform some of the most unpleasant examinations to find out the reason for it, you should let Janus and Thomas check you over. Maybe they can detect the reason without unpleasant tests. As for your fingers, I'm not trained for rehabilitation work. I could only call Maria."

"No, please," Severus said before letting himself sink back onto his bed, defeated. The room he and Harry had in this house was much more comfortable than the tidy, sparsely-furnished one at Alexander's. There stood a crooked old desk and a commode at one side of the room. The big wardrobe looked to be very old as well. It made Severus feel at home.

"I will go and send them here now, Severus. Please behave and work together with them."

Five minutes later, Janus and Thomas came into the room. Janus smiled at him while Thomas placed his bag on Severus' night table.

"Dexter made us promise to have you ready for brewing by tomorrow," Janus said when he sat down beside Severus on the bed and Thomas pulled a chair close.

Severus looked nervously at Thomas, but he knew he had to cope with Janus first. He would take the lead even though Thomas was the children's Healer. It had always been like this, and it seemed like it would not change.

"So, what's wrong, Severus?"

"Hasn't Poppy already told you?"

Janus chuckled. "Of course she has, but maybe there is more. And asking you what the problem is gives you the freedom to decide which problem we will look at first."

"It will hurt. It always hurts when Maria stretches them. That's why I didn't say something. I hate it, and it's already become much better."

"So your hands, I'm guessing? Let Thomas have a look at them." Janus changed places with Thomas, and the brown haired, well-built man took over. Janus, in comparison, was tall and blonde; he always said it was because of the Norwegian.

"No reason to hyperventilate, Severus. You already know me," Thomas said friendly and smiled at Severus. He did not grab for the boy's hands but rather held his own open for Severus to lay his hands in.

Severus sighed. His heart was beating like hell, and he really feared the pain that would come. "It will hurt."

"I promise to be careful, and as soon as you tell me you can't stand it anymore, I will stop and we will talk about a way to continue."

With a heavy sigh, Severus placed his right hand in Thomas'.

"Is it only one hand or both?"

"Both." Severus reluctantly placed his other hand over his stomach in case Thomas wanted to look at it. Janus shifted and placed a hand on Severus' forehead.

"Calm down, Severus. You make yourself ill. Thomas will be careful. He already promised."

"Maria never could be careful. She says it is necessary that it is painful because she wouldn't know the limit otherwise. Not even cooling helped."

"I don't plan on doing stretching exercises with you, Severus. It's true that it isn't possible to make a stretching exercise painless, but we are doing an examination here. I don't think this is a relapse. Your Healer would have noticed if it was. Why don't you tell me when you first noticed that something wasn't right anymore?"

Severus bit his bottom lip. "You won't tell Poppy, right?"

"No, I won't. You know that I won't say anything I didn't tell you before. Only what is absolutely necessary," Thomas assured Severus.

"I realized it about a month ago, I think. They started to hurt when it was cold or rainy outside. It got worse over the last week. Now I sometimes can't stretch them fully."

"Do you think they are feeling warmer than normal?"

Severus thought about it, but then shook his head. "It's more as if they are going stiff." He looked shocked at Thomas after his own diagnosis. "They won't go stiff, will they? I mean, I already have a damaged magic core. Please, I can't have stiff fingers in addition." Severus groaned when a wave of thick magic coursed through his body.

"Don't knock him out, Janus. I still need him fully awake."

"He was close to a panic attack. I just brought him down a bit." He lessened the magic flow when he felt Severus' heart beat slow.

"Severus, I will examine your hands now. I need to stretch them a bit, but you can tell me if the pain gets too bad." Thomas took Severus' right hand in his and started to stretch the fingers.

Tears sprang up in Severus' eyes, and he whimpered. Janus spoke soothing words in his ear; his hand still rested on Severus' forehead. The pain in his fingers slowly ebbed as Severus felt magic flow through them. They became warm, really warm, and then hot. "They're burning."

"It's almost over, Severus. Please try to bear it for a bit longer," Thomas asked.

Then it became unbearable, and Severus sobbed. Immediately, the burning stopped and pain-relieving magic seeped into his hands.

"Better?" Thomas asked as he held Severus' hands in one hand and rummaged in his bag with the other.

Severus breathed out, relieved, and nodded.

"I fear I will get in trouble with Dexter, but I hope I will have you ready for brewing at least on your last day here. Tomorrow you will need to take it easy, and I'll have to work on your hands again. This salve should keep them painless, but it also will make them a bit numb. Tell me if it troubles you too much or if the pain comes back. You have a rheumatic illness. I fear you will have problems in future as well, especially if you overwork or if the weather is cold or humid. The good news is that if you don't wait too long before asking for help next time, the healing will be painless and sometimes even the salve will help on its own. We just have to see. Do you feel ready for healing the other hand?" Severus' right hand was now bandaged and felt lovely and numb after the burning a few minutes earlier. Better to get it over with, Severus thought and nodded.

Ten minutes and a few more tears later, his other hand was also wrapped and numb.

"Okay, I know we are a bit unbearable, Severus, but that wasn't the only problem, was it?" Janus took over again.

Severus shook his head, but then looked down, ashamed. He hated to undress in front of anyone. Even with just Harry in the room he felt awkward. People always looked shocked at him because he was so thin.

"What's wrong, Severus? Why won't you tell us?" Janus asked.

"I don't want to show you. I know I don't look normal, but I hate it when people look at me as if I'm a skeleton or a monster when they see me."

"We promise not to look shocked, Severus. We know that you are underweight. We can already imagine what you look like under those clothes," Janus said. Then he lifted his hand from Severus' forehead and gently nudged him to sit up. "Come on, let us see the rash."

Reluctantly, Severus pulled his jumper over his head. He needed a bit help from Thomas as he could hardly feel his hands. Both Healers leaned over, interested. They turned his arms around and checked his back as well. Then they told him to lay down, and Thomas waved his wand over the rash on Severus' chest.

"I need you to undress completely, Severus. Your underwear can stay, but I need to see the rest of your skin," Thomas said as he stood up to give Severus more room to undress. Using the time to rummage in his bag and consult with Janus, he came back to Severus with a vial in his hand.

Severus, meanwhile, had pulled his socks and his jeans off. He felt very vulnerable now, but he was glad it was Janus and Thomas and not Poppy's sisters. Carla also is a level eight Healer, so he could have been in this room with her instead. He hugged his chest and pulled his knees up.

"No, Severus, we still don't know if this rash is contagious. Try to not touch other areas with it." Thomas pried Severus' arms away from his torso. "How long have you had it?"

"I saw the rash only today, but I think it started to itch last week."

"Hmm," Janus said and looked thoughtfully.

"Already an idea?" Thomas asked the blonde mind healer.

"Not sure. Let's try the normal tests first."

Severus jumped when Thomas had reached his thighs and spread his legs during the examination. Immediately, Janus' hand was on his shoulder and calming magic flew into him as Thomas went on with his thorough examination. Severus' face was beat red and matched the color of the rash, but both Healers ignored it.

"I have to scratch a bit on the rash to get some skin to examine it. It will hurt a bit, but not more than the scratching you have done over the last few days. Lay back," Thomas instructed and then scraped at Severus chest with a scalpel-like instrument. It hurt a bit, and Severus held his breath. He watched Thomas a minute later when he put the skin in the vial and it turned lilac. Both Healers waved their wand over it before they shifted places again.

"You can put your jeans on again, Severus," Janus said. Thomas rummaged in his bag again and waved his wand over something Severus could not see. Then Thomas closed his bag and handed Janus a big container of salve. "I will go check on Harry. Rest those hands for the next twenty-four hours, Severus. Then I will have a look at them again."

Severus looked puzzled at Thomas as he closed the door behind him. Then he looked at Janus questioningly. "What about the rash? Can't it be healed?"

"Sure it can. We'll talk about it now." Janus smiled at Severus. "First, we will apply this to the rash so you can talk without being distracted by the itchiness. Lay down again."

"Can I put it on myself?"

Janus shrugged. "Sure." He gave him the salve. "There should be a thick white layer on the entire rash."

Severus nodded and applied the salve. It was difficult as only his fingertips were free of the bandages and he still had hardly any feeling in them. When he was finished, he looked up at Janus. "Is that enough?"

"Yes, it is. Keep the salve. It will refill itself as long as you need it. Ready to talk now?"

"About what? Is it contagious?"

"No, it isn't. Don't worry. I want to talk with you about the time when you first noticed the itchiness, or rather, a few days before it."

Severus looked puzzled. "I don't understand."

"Just try to remember what happened around that time."

"I...I got in trouble. I attacked someone, and Alastor was...really mad at me. He said...he said something really bad to me."

"Can you tell me what he said and how you felt about it?"

Severus looked down. "He said that he feared I would become Dark again. I thought he wouldn't want me as his son anymore, and I felt horrible. I have nowhere else to go and...I don't want to go anywhere else. Still, I seem to do everything wrong, and even if I really try to do the right thing, in the end it turns out to be stupid or even really bad."

"You had been Alastor's son during a time when eighty percent of the wizards and witches who knew you were sure you were still a Death Eater. He always stood at your side. When he said that, he was surely under a lot of stress and very worried. People say things in moments like that that they don't really mean."

"I know, but I can't stop thinking about it."

"Are you worried you could become Dark again, Severus?"

Severus bit his bottom lip and fumbled with the salve container in his hands. "It could happen, couldn't it?"

"Of course it could, but if you stay with Alastor and Poppy, the chances are much lower, in my opinion. And it will be your decision. It's nothing that just comes over you."

"But when I was in that greenhouse, it felt good to see his panic. It felt good to pay him back."

"It wasn't right, but it wasn't Dark either. You had good reasons to be afraid of the boy from what I've heard from Poppy about it. You were under emotional stress and wanted to make him feel the fear you felt with him."

Severus looked into those blue eyes. "So you think I won't go Dark?"

"Yes, I think so. Poppy and Alastor love you and you will be raised with love this time, Severus. What reason could you have to turn Dark again?"

Severus shrugged but already felt much better. "What does that have to do with my rash?"

"Your rash is caused by emotional stress, Severus. It will last for a few more weeks I fear, but then you will get better. Use the salve whenever you feel the itchiness."

"Will I get this whenever I have stress?" Severus asked, worried.

"No, you won't. Nobody can tell why someone gets it. The only thing that is clear is that it is caused by great emotional stress. Some people are more prone to it than others. Maybe you will never get it again. There is nothing you can do about it besides talking about what bothers you before it is eats you up from inside. Now dress or you will catch a cold as well."