Snape searched for nearly ten minutes before finding Harry’s trunk locked in the small cupboard beneath the stairs. As he pulled it out, he noticed something else. Scrawled along one wall in a child’s handwriting he read “Harry’s Room.” Looking closer, he saw other scribbles, some in crayon, some in pencil. They wouldn’t really have kept him locked up in here, would they? The small voice in his head echoed: They kept you locked up in someplace similar. Why not Harry? Snape shuddered, and pulled himself and the trunk quickly out of the confining space.

Rummaging haphazardly through Harry’s trunk, he found what he was looking for. Setting it aside, he shrunk the rest of Harry’s belongings to fit in his pocket and headed upstairs to retrieve the boy in question.

Snape cringed as he entered the small room once more. “Potter?”

No response.

“Potter,” Snape said more forcefully.

Nothing.

He knelt down beside the mattress on the floor. “Harry,” Snape said softly, the name tasting both foreign and bitter on his tongue.

Harry stirred slightly and moaned.

“Can you walk?”

Harry rolled over in an attempt to sit up, then clutched his midsection with both arms, groaning loudly. He curled into a ball on his side, his eyes screwed tight shut. Sweat glistened on his skin.

“I’ll take that as a no.” Snape sighed. Reaching inside his robes, he pulled out a vial of violet liquid. “It’s not much,” Snape said, “but it’s the best I’ve got on me.” Leaning forward, he tipped the contents into Harry’s mouth and waited for the boy to swallow. After covering him with the invisibility cloak that Snape had pilfered from Potter’s trunk, Snape reached one arm under the boy’s knees and the other beneath his shoulders, lifting him off the blood stained mattress. “This might hurt a bit,” Snape murmured, “but there’s nothing for it.”

Potter had indeed cried out in pain upon being picked up, and continued to whimper with Snape’s every step, but that was not what had disconcerted Snape so much. No, it was the way that the nearly unconscious boy had snuggled against Snape’s chest, seeking what—Solace? Comfort? Protection? Snape wasn’t sure. He only knew that if Harry Potter was awake, he’d never take such liberties with Severus Snape. Nor would Snape have allowed it, if not for the precarious condition of the Boy Who Lived.

Snape carefully carried Potter down the stairs, concealed under the cloak. Hoping that Tonks had sufficiently secured the perimeter, he strode across the backyard, crossed the boundary of Lily’s blood protection at a run, and Apparated to just outside of Hogwarts. Although Harry weighed much less than a 14-year-old should, for the moment Snape was grateful: It wasn’t easy to carry dead weight across a distance, and he wouldn’t be able to levitate Potter until they got inside the relative safety of the castle’s gates. He only hoped that Madam Pomfrey was still in residence when they arrived.

 Harry felt like he was floating. He heard voices, vague utterances, echoing around him. One was female, the other two were male. They sounded familiar, but try as he might to grasp what they were saying, the words seemed to swirl in circles around him, just out of reach. Only snatches of conversation registered in his mind before promptly fading away.

“Why is he here?”

“Most likely the uncle…”

“And right after Cedric’s death too…”

“Malnourished, nearly starved…”

“After all he’s been through…”

“Dreamless sleep, it was all I had on me…”

“Should have recognized the signs…”

“Internal bleeding, ruptured spleen…”

“Why didn’t he tell anyone…”

“Fever, possible pneumonia…”

“Should have known…”

“So many scars…”

“What should we do about his relatives?”

“Azkaban would be too good for them…”

“I’ve failed him yet again…”

“How much longer, Poppy?”

“Weeks to heal…”

“Safer here, in my quarters…”

“Are you sure?”

Fatigue pulled him back under, blotting out the noises around him. No dreams disturbed him, only the hazy foreboding of something being wrong. It was too bright, too open. He was not being suffocated by the heat of still, close air. And yet…

A wave of nausea brought him to the surface with such force that he rolled off the cushioned surface he was lying on and onto the floor, landing unsteadily on hands and knees. He reached out vaguely with a shaking hand. “Bathroom,” he croaked, his eyes squeezed shut against the light that threatened to make his head explode and the stabbing pain in his chest.

Strong hands lifted him up and guided him forward. He stumbled along beside the man, who was speaking, but all Harry could focus on was the overwhelming need to vomit. Try as he might to hold it back, he wretched, falling to his knees on a cold, hard floor and spewing forth a foul mixture that burned his throat. He heard it hit water and was amazed that he’d made it to the toilet.

He’d hoped that vomiting once would be enough, but he wasn’t spared the disgrace. Wave after wave of nausea hit him, emptying his stomach of bile and turning into excruciating dry heaves. His head hammered mercilessly as sweat beaded on his skin. His stomach felt like it was being sliced and diced into pieces from the inside out. He felt something cool against his lips, and pushed it away, dry heaves winning the battle for control. As soon as the most recent bout had passed, he felt it again, quickly heeding the single word command: “Drink.”

The liquid slid down his throat, and though he thought he might throw it back up, he did not. The potion calmed the waves of nausea, leaving the pounding in his head and the pain in his chest to take center stage. Overcome, he sunk numbly to the floor. A voice echoed above him, frustrated, then cajoling, but finally, mercifully, it stopped. Harry felt himself floating back to the soft cushioned place where, just before he fell restlessly back to sleep, he felt the soothing relief of a wet cloth wiping the sweat from his brow.

 Harry awoke to the sound of a scream, realizing too late that it was his own. He felt as if knives were being driven into his midsection. Wrapping his arms around his middle, he thrashed against the torment, tears unwillingly being squeezed from his eyes. “Make it stop, make it stop,” he cried.

Once again he felt something cool against his lips.

“Drink this,” the voice commanded, waiting for him to swallow. “And this.”

Harry obeyed; anything to stop the excruciating pain.

He heard the murmurs of a woman’s voice.

“The vomiting must have caused his newly repaired spleen to re-rupture. You should have called me immediately,” she scolded. “If he gets worse, let me know right away.”

Sometime later, when he finally opened his eyes, he found his glasses floating in midair in front of him. Slipping them on, he found himself looking into the obsidian orbs of his most hated professor, sitting in a chair across from him and watching him closely. Harry blinked, and blinked again. “Still stuck in a fever dream,” he muttered. “Strangest damn thing.”

“Watch your language, Potter,” the voice drawled.

Startled, Harry’s eyes focused on the apparition.

“And, unfortunately for both of us, you are not dreaming, Mr. Potter.”

Harry shifted uncomfortably, wincing at the movement.

“Are you still in pain?”

Harry looked at his professor. Where was he? Why was Snape here? And why would Snape care if he, Harry Potter, was in pain?

“A little,” Harry admitted. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

Snape rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like “insufferable Gryffindors.” Handing Harry a vial of glimmering yellow liquid, he said, “Drink it.”

Harry did as he was told. The stinging sensation in his chest and the pounding in his head abated somewhat. “Thank you,” Harry said. At the nod Snape gave him, he felt even more unsettled. “Are you sure this isn’t a dream?”

“Quite,” Snape replied, and got up from his chair. “If you are feeling better, I have some work to do. If you have need of me,” Snape said, setting a small red cube on the table, “hold this in the palm of your hand. I have one just like it, and it will glow, signaling that you require attention.”

Harry coughed, earning himself a strange look from Snape. Wasn’t Snape always accusing him of constantly seeking attention? Harry looked away. He wouldn’t give the man the satisfaction of calling him no matter what the circumstance.

“Keep it with you at all times, Potter,” Snape said and left the room.