Chapter 8 – Friend or Foe?

Little Harry hung onto his Tall Man’s robes tightly as they entered the new space.  His tiny nose wrinkled up in distaste as he breathed the odd smelling air, but he wasn’t sure if he should dare give voice to such a relatively inconsequential thing, so he kept his mouth shut.  The same couldn’t be said for Captain, though. 

“Smells icky in here,” his bear groused from within his arms. 

He nodded in agreement and squeezed Captain tighter. 

His Tall Man sat them down upon one of the many beds present in the strange room, and for a brief fear stricken moment, he wondered if he hadn’t been taken to some kind of extremely pristine orphanage.   His fear caused him to clench his little fingers even more securely around his Tall Man’s robe, and he could feel heart speeding up from where he was pressed against Severus’s warm chest. 

The arms around him shifted as his Tall Man became aware of his distress and soon he could hear a calm voice speaking softly in his ear. 

“You are perfectly safe here.  No one will hurt you,” his Tall Man said. 

“He didn’t say anything about being here with us!”  He practically screamed from within his own mind towards his small fuzzy friend. 

“Don’t leave—please!”  He begged quietly. 

“I told you that I would not leave you alone, and I mean to keep my word,” his Tall Man reassured him in a deep voice that rumbled gently through him. 

“Forev’r?”  He asked in a whisper, his green eyes wide. 

“If need be, then yes,” his Tall Man said with a small smile at him. 

Harry nodded hurriedly and then quickly wiped a small robed arm across his eyes. 

“Severus Snape!”  A voice exclaimed from across the room. 

Little Harry froze and he could feel Severus’s arms tighten themselves around his small body.

He heard footsteps as the unknown person made his or her way over to where they were, and he tensed his body up accordingly, barely even breathing.  His Tall Man’s hand was moving up and down his thin back in a comforting manner, but he didn’t trust himself to relax.  It was all he could do to continue breathing. 

“What brings you here today?  Hmm?  Have you gone and hurt yourself on some fool potion ingredients gathering mission?”  The voice was a woman’s voice, he could tell for sure now.  He clenched his eyes tightly, silently begging for his Tall Man to protect him from her likely wrath. 

. . .

His small boy was stiff as a board from where he lay against Severus’s shoulder.  It would have almost been funny if not for the reasons behind the waves of extreme fear he could almost literally feel coming off of the lad. 

He shot a warning glance at Poppy, but the woman seemed oblivious to his unusually dark glare. 

“Poppy,” he hissed, pointing a finger at the small bundle that was now shaking with fear from within his lap. 

“Severus—what in the world?”  The woman said, dropping her voice into a quieter range. 

“Poppy, this—,” he cut himself, flustered as to how to explain their relationship. 

A light flickered behind Poppy’s peering figure, and he allowed his eyes to follow the strange distraction.  If he was surprised to Lily suddenly sitting on one of the beds diagonal from them, he did not allow it show on his face. 

“Raise him as your own,” she repeated to him, speaking aloud in his mind. 

And then she was gone and Poppy was staring at him with a peculiar expression.  He scowled darkly at the look and then looked back down at the small boy in his lap.  The child was looking solemnly at him, thumb firmly clenched in his mouth, but the lad’s tremors were now absent from his overly thin frame. 

He sighed, resigning himself to his duty, and then turned himself back towards the patiently waiting woman. 

“Poppy, this is my son, Harry.”

Two surprised sets of eyes turned themselves on him, but only one of those sets opted to speak. 

“Severus, what did you say?”  A nearly white faced Poppy asked, and with a swish of his wand he quickly summoned a chair and pushed her into it before she collapsed. 

Honestly, he thought in exasperation. 

“This is my son, Poppy.  I just signed the adoption papers in Albus’s office not twenty minutes ago,” he said, trying to keep his face from darkening too much at the memory of that meeting. 

“Severus, surely you are joking,” the woman tried weakly, still unbelieving. 

“I wouldn’t joke about something of this caliber,” he said with a sneer. 

“But Severus, that’s Harry Potter!” She argued in a loud whisper. 

He looked down at the small wide eyed boy still staring intently up at him and smirked.  

The lad nodded at him, clearly remembering the same occurrence with Dumbledore barely two days prior. 

“And I’m Severus Snape,” he said, looking back up at her with a sneer.  “Apparently we won’t need to wear name tags around you now.” 

“How did this happen?”  Poppy peered up at them both, completely ignoring his previous statement. 

Must I discuss the birds and bees with you?  He thought snidely, but wisely kept the comment to himself. 

“My angel brought me,” his small child suddenly interjected into the decidedly odd conversation. 

Severus looked back down and saw with some relief that the lad had rearranged himself atop his lap, and was now faced outwards towards Poppy.  Captain was still being held protectively against his chest though, in a manner not dissimilar to Severus’s own hold on the boy. 

“Your angel?”  An inquisitive Poppy prompted, her steely eyed visage already looking the lad over. 

“She has red hair and eyes like mine!”  The child chirped. 

Poppy’s eyes came back up to Severus’s own in sudden realization. 

“Yes, his angel brought him to me,” Severus emphasized with a pointed look down at the small boy watching them both carefully.  “After his idiot relatives nearly killed him,” he couldn’t help but growl.  His hands continued stroking the child’s hair gently during his explanation, and continued through his sharing of the subsequent details of just how the little boy had come to trust him so implicitly. 

. . .

Poppy continued looking at the unlikely pair sitting atop one of her infirmary beds for a few moments after Severus had finished his recounting of their bizarre tale. 

“I suppose you are here for his physical then, correct?”  She finally stated in a brisk no nonsense tone. 

The young man across from her nodded grimly. 

Her face softened as she really took in the appearance of the child.  He was clearly malnourished and showed other signs of abuse as well; such as flinching every time she moved towards him.  Noticing the bear held tightly in his arms, she nodded to herself and set about a course of action within her own mind. 

“Harry, my name is Poppy,” she said, reaching out a hand to touch the child’s bear lightly with only her fingertips.  The child allowed her action for all of about fifteen seconds, and then pulled the stuffed toy out of reach. 

“Cap’n don’t like being touched,” the boy whispered, eyes wide and fearful. 

“Doesn’t,” Severus added, stroking the lad’s head gently.  “Captain doesn’t like being touched.”

“Doesn’t,” the child corrected himself softly, his arms holding his bear in a death grip.

“Harry, I’m going to need to do check you over and make sure that you are growing like a big boy should,” she said encouragingly.

Fearful green eyes were her only response. 

“If you like,” she suggested slowly, “I can demonstrate everything I’m going to do with you on your little friend.  Captain, you said?” 

Merlin, keep me from saying that I’m going to do anything to the boy, she thought fervently. 

“Will it hurt him any?”  The child asked in a tremulous voice that made her heart clench tightly within her chest.  Severus’s scowl only deepened with the lad’s question, but she noted with satisfaction that his fingers continued to stroke over the boy’s head soothingly regardless. 

That’s right Severus; don’t let him think that you’re angry at him.

“It won’t,” she promised fiercely. 

She watched the tiny lad as he contemplated her words, finally letting out a frightened breath as he seemed to come to a conclusion. 

“Okay,” the child whispered, glancing back up at Severus for reassurance.

The very first thing she did to the little plushie toy was perform an eyesight diagnostic charm.  With a little silent tweaking of the numbers that appeared floating in the air next to the bear’s prone form, she made it appear as though it was nearsighted.  She explained what it meant to be nearsighted and then went so far as to transfigure a stray button into a tiny pair of glasses, which she carefully affixed to the bear’s face. 

Remembering the animosity that had existed between Severus and James Potter, she wisely refrained from making the glasses dark rimmed or circular.  Instead, she made the lenses oval, with a bit of a squarish edge along the top. 

“There,” she exclaimed, stepping back from the child’s toy.  “He looks very smart now, don’t you think?” 

The boy peered closely at his bear and hesitantly touched the glasses with a small shaking finger. 

“He can see?” 

“He can see much better now,” she said, noticing Severus’s speculative look towards the child. 

“Are you ready to see better now too?”  She asked gently. 

The boy looked up at Severus and pulled the man’s arms more tightly around his much smaller body before nodding yes. 

As promised, the diagnostic charm was quick and painless, and before long, the lad was blinking in surprise through his own pair of glasses. 

“What do you think?”  She heard Severus ask softly. 

“Everything’s brighter,” the child whispered with some excitement.  “But you still smell the same; so I still feel safe,” he added, causing a slight blush to come across the sallow cheeks of the Potions professor. 

Knowing better than to get herself involved in that conversation, Poppy turned back to the bear and gently arranged him so that he was laid out on the bed beside them.  She made sure to be on the far side of the bed with her face turned towards them before beginning her diagnostics. 

She slowly waved her wand over him, and then patiently took the time to explain to the small boy what it meant every time a new number appeared over a different bear part.  She noted with approval that both Harry and Severus were watching her movements very intently. 

When it came time to do the real thing on the tiny child, Harry surprised her by obediently lying down without being prompted, but still would not remove his vice-like grip from Severus’s hand. 

She had purposely caused the numbers that appeared for the child’s bear to fall within the normal ranges that one would typically find for a healthy little boy.  However, the diagnostic numbers that appeared this time were very different, adding confirmation to many of her suspicions.  It was only from her many years of experience that she was able to keep the ongoing shock of the examination from showing on her face. 

Her scans showed evidence that the small child had withstood three years of traumatic abuse at the hands of his relatives. 

What kind of bastard does this to a little boy?  She fumed silently to herself as she catalogued the numerous wounds—healed and not—that the child’s body had suffered.  Thankfully, the lad had been spared from the disastrous experience of sexual abuse, but Merlin only knew what might have happened had the boy stayed in that horrible environment much longer. 

Finally, at the end of her examination, she turned an apologetic face back to Severus.  He was standing stony faced on the other side of the bed; his hand wound tightly around the hand of the small child who was still staring wide eyed up at them both. 

“At some point, his arm was broken, but unfortunately it didn’t heal quite right,” she said softly, looking into the pained eyes of the hardened young man before her. 

“Dreamless, then,” Severus managed to say. 

“Of course,” she said softly, and then turned her attention back to the little boy still silently watching them.  His arm was back around his bear and his other hand was still within Severus’s much larger one. 

“I need to reset your arm, but I’m going to give you something that will allow you to be asleep while I’m doing it,” she said gently. 

“Will my Tall Man be here wit’ me?”  The lad asked in a tiny voice, his lower lip trembling slightly. 

Poppy glanced at Severus and was amazed at the change in his face as sat down on the bed next to the child’s small body. 

“Yes,” Severus said firmly, gently running his other hand through the boy’s sweaty hair.

“Okay,” the boy said trustingly towards his ‘Tall Man.’

Poppy summoned the Dreamless Sleep and poured out a small child sized amount for the lad, which she handed to Severus.  She watched with interest as the normally abrasive man gently fed the boy the potion.  When little Harry was asleep, he pulled the child into his arms and then turned smoldering black eyes back onto her own. 

“No sexual abuse,” was the first thing that came out of her mouth. 

A small expelled breath was his only outward indication of relief as he continued to stare unblinkingly at her. 

“Severus, who does this to a child?”  She bit out angrily, waving her hands towards the sleeping child within his protective arms.  “Nearly every one of his ribs have been broken before, and some of them more than once,” it was her turn to hiss furiously.  “Blunt force trauma,” she growled painfully.  “He is only a little boy.”

“And Albus very nearly sent him back,” Severus’s cool fury was somehow very grounding to her state of being.  She looked back at the small boy draped protectively within the young man’s arms and narrowed her eyes. 

“Come, let’s get this over with,” she said, pulling her professional demeanor back out with an angry jerk of willpower. 

Before long, they were done, and she was left discussing nutritional potions with the still surprising young man opposite her.