Harry startled awake mid apparation and as soon as they reappeared in front of the house he struggled to let Snape know that he needed to be let down, surprised that the man had been carrying him in the first place, conscious or not. Severus let him down and Harry fell to his knees on the grass and threw up, crying out at the pain in his throat. After a moment, there was a hand on his back and another hand lifting him from around the front, a strong arm pulling up under his armpit. Harry tried to stand, but now that there was someone to help him, he really was too tired to keep going, and his knees buckled as if reading his mind. Snape caught him before he fell all the way to the ground however, and after a few moments of struggling, had Harry up the steps and through the front door. Looking tired himself, Severus deposited Harry on the couch and made sure he was lying down before he moved off.

Watching the ceiling spin, Harry wondered if he had actually fallen asleep and woken again before Snape came back with an armful of things, including several phials, two tins, a cup of water, and a wash cloth.

"I will need to run a diagnostic charm on you before I can give you any potions," Snape explained as he waved his wand and then incanted something low under his breath. Harry squirmed for a moment as a tingling sensation swept through his body, but stilled again when it vanished as soon as it came.

Without stopping to tell Harry what damage there was to his body, the Potions Master uncorked two phials and mixed the potions together before helping Harry to swallow them, and immediately handing him two more potions to swallow. Harry coughed, but the pain in his throat lessened slightly with the last potion. Some of the throbbing and dizziness subsided as well, but Harry was still feeling very unwell.

"Infection has set into the gash on your head, and it looks as though you have a concussion. This will likely hurt for another week. There is some damage to your lungs and throat from prolonged exposure to the toxic fumes from the potions that were spilled and mixed together. I believe with rest and the right potions that you will heal completely in a few weeks however."

Still not quite sure what was happening with his body, and if it would be important to his healing to reveal these things, Harry felt uncomfortable and cleared his throat to some pain.

"Yes?"

Harry's eyes flitted up to the older man's black ones and then back down with a frown.

"I... my body... well, it's different." Harry paused, expecting to be yelled at for being incoherent, but he wasn't and so he cleared his throat again and continued.

"I saw shadows every night, and well, once I almost had an accident."

"An accident?"

Harry reddened a little and Snape sat up straight from where he sat across from Harry on the coffee table.

"The scans indicated you are exhausted, dehydrated, malnourished, and that your body has been in and out of shock with your injuries and exertion. That is perhaps normal given the circumstances. The shadows that you saw were not an effect of this, but were from the spell I used to track you."

Harry let out a breath, glad that there was nothing seriously wrong with him.

"You will likely be sick for many days with the infection incurred during your... travels, and I cannot heal all of your injuries fully with potions until it is gone, which means that the fracture in your ribs will have to wait. You will need to stay in bed as much as possible. I can take care of the contusions with a salve and continue to give you potions for the damage to your lungs and throat."

Mouth too dry suddenly, Harry nodded and croaked, "Thank you."

Severus handed him the cup of water he'd brought with him then and said, "The dry throat is a result of the potions doing their work on the infection. You will need to rehydrate frequently, as the potion serves to dry things out."

Realizing that he was still soaking then from the rain, Harry pulled at his wet shirt and struggled to sit up, wondering if he could get changed by himself, but felt overly weak and fell back to the couch.

Giving a wary look to the stairs through the door behind him, and then back to Harry, Severus cleared his throat and gave Harry a determined look. "You need to be in bed and in dry clothes. It will work out better for both of us if you allow me to do what I need to do to make this so."

Harry nodded, just wanting to be dry and asleep, and flinched a moment later when Snape reached towards him and put his hands under Harry's legs and shoulders to lift him. The man paused and gauged the fearful look in the boy's eyes before he cleared his throat and asked, "Are you ready to continue?"

Turning red because he had flinched back, Harry nodded and mumbled quietly, "Yes sir." Before he knew it he was hoisted up in the air and being carried up the stairs and into his gray, but blissfully warm and dry room. Perhaps he had taken it for granted... was ungrateful for what was given to him.

When Snape lay him on the soft bed on top of the gray covers, and vanished Harry's wet shirt, pants and undergarments, replacing them in a split second with dry pajamas with another flick of his wand, minus the shirt, Harry closed his eyes and tried to pretend that he could go to sleep in that split second to avoid feeling embarrassed.

"I need to put the salve on the contusions on your torso."

Harry opened one eye and then really did want to go to sleep, but could not, so instead he decided on conversation to make things feel less awkward as the man unscrewed the lid to one of the tins and revealed bruise balm.

"Where's Luna... was she- was she mad at me?"

"She is worried. I sent her to stay with Eloise Midgeon and her parents while I was away looking for you... I will call her back in a few days." He pondered on the fact that the boy seemed to care what Luna thought. Perhaps he thought of her in a romantic way? That disturbed Severus, perhaps only because she was in his permanent care until she was seventeen, and he did not want to deal with suitors. Deciding to find out, he asked, "I did not realize you cared what she thought." He began rubbing the bruise balm into a rather large bruise across Harry's shoulder and tried to gauge the look on the child's face. He looked thoughtful.

"She was nice to me," he said finally. He wanted to add that he didn't get much of that, and so when he did he was grateful, and often cherished those few people who were kind to him, but his throat tightened up at that thought, along with his fists, and he swallowed hard to rid himself of the want to cry just then. Severus noticed the boy tense and waited to continue with the balm until he relaxed, which was only a few moments later.

"Here, drink this." Harry accepted the help to lift his head and drink the cool water being offered to him, and then let his head fall back to the pillow again.

"We're done for now. Try to get some rest. I will be in to check on you later."

Severus rose and took with him the empty drinking glass, pausing in the door with a question that needed answering. Would the boy run again? He could not rid himself of the look of hurt and pleading the boy displayed on the hill in the rain. He could not hope to understand why the boy was weighted with such burdensome feelings, and yet could not bring himself to ask. As he watched the child's chest rise and fall, he realized his chance had passed, as he was already asleep. He turned the light off and left the door open as he went to lay down himself.

* * *

Severus was aware of the wide eyes following him around the room as he looked for a suitable change of clothes to put Harry into for the day. When he glanced over several times, there was a curious frown, hardly enough of one to notice at all across the Gryffindor's face, almost as if he were trying to figure something out.

It had been three days now since Harry had been brought back and laid in the bed, and the pajamas needed to be taken off and washed, yet Severus could find nothing nice enough to put on him. Most of his shirts were torn or had holes, or were just too big, and the pants were all in the same condition.

"What Potter?" Severus finally could no longer take the staring and turned with his hands on his hips to the boy who was half sitting in the bed, propped up with two pillows.

"Sir?" The voice was a lot more solid now that the throat and lungs had better started to heal. No longer uncertain and scratchy.

"You have been staring at me for five minutes." At this the boy averted his eyes and Severus dropped his arms, turning quickly and grabbing a red t-shirt shirt with small holes around the collar, and a pair of pants. "Put these on," he said, handing them to Harry. "I will be back with your lunch shortly." He could feel Potter's eyes on his back on his way out, but tried to ignore it, and went downstairs. It was not long however before he was running back up the stairs and into the room; less than two minutes in fact, for he had heard a large thump and a grunt of pain.

Eyes evaluating the scene quickly, he found the boy on the floor, shirt in hand and shaking as he tried to pick himself back up again. Without thought Severus swooped down and lifted the child from under the arm pits, placing him back in the bed. Obviously he was still too weak to stand on his own.

"Fell," Harry said, hands shaking seemingly of their own accord now. His eyes rose to meet his Professor's, curious about what snide remark was going to make it's way out of the man's lips, but none came.

"Your hands are shaking."

"What?" He looked down to them, and then clasped them together. "Oh."

Severus stooped down to pick up the fallen article of clothing and then motioned for Harry to lift his arms up, which he did, and then Severus began pulling off the pajama top and quickly helped him into the clean shirt. He didn't realize that the boy was staring at him again until he stepped back to look for the khaki pants.

"Potter... you're doing it again."

"Doing what sir?"

"Staring at me. I require an explanation. Now." He had become impatient with the game and was unwilling to let him forgo an answer a second time.

Clasping his hands together again, perhaps in an attempt to still the shaking once more, Harry looked down and then said, "Well, it's just that... well, you've been helping me a lot in the last couple days."

"And this warrants staring how?"

Harry looked up into his black eyes. "You never did that before. I- I didn't think you would." His eyes slowly made their way back down to his knees again. Harry kept waking in the night from nightmares and Snape was always there moments later with a wet wash cloth to press to his feverish forehead. This was the first morning he'd woken without a fever, and the Professor had been able to give him potion to mend his cracked rib and help speed up the healing of the other cuts and scrapes across his body. He suppressed a shudder when he remembered that last night had been a particularly nasty nightmare in which he'd actually woken up screaming.

When he realized that the Professor was still there, just standing there quietly, Harry looked up to find the man's features fallen somehow, defeated, uneven. It was unnerving to see someone who was always so composed lose their composure, and Harry had the feeling that it was something the man prized, to never lose self-control. He even made his angry outbursts seem intentional most days.

In the next moment the Professor sat down on the edge of the bed next to Harry, surprising him, and Harry realized how tired he looked.

"I have been that bad to you, that you did not expect basic help with your injuries?"

Swallowing, Harry said, "No- I just... when you came back and I was hurt, you... well- I'm sorry." He hung his head, not sure what to do, and apologizing had always been the only course of action to avert danger or trouble at the Dursleys.

"What for?"

"I didn't mean- you've been real nice to me now."

Severus eyed him closely as the boy continued to struggle with words. He did not consider that how he had treated the boy in the last few days was nice... tending his wounds was just what had to be done. The unbidden images of the boy thrashing about in the throws of terror the night before came to mind, and he recalled some of the things he had screamed. He pleaded in his sleep not to be sent back... seemed so sure of certain doom if he returned to Little Whinging.

"Is that why you ran away? The first time," he clarified as the boy looked up. "You take such small things as large acts of kindness to you, which means you can't have been shown much kindness in your life. I heard you talking in your sleep last night." More than talking actually... Severus had stood for almost five minutes listening to the boy's nightmarish pleas.

Long moment's passed, and Harry's eyes glazed over as he looked off at nothing across the room.

"Harry?"

Harry looked over at him then and with a choked voice asked, "When is Luna coming back?"

Severus straightened up. In not so many words Harry had just told him explicitly that he did not wish to talk about it, and Severus wondered just how many of his questions would go permanently unanswered.

"I will retrieve her tomorrow if you wish it."

"Yes," Harry said quietly. When Severus stood up and left the room a moment later, closing the door behind him, Harry said in a very small voice, "I wish it."