Potions and Snitches
Snape and Harry Gen Fanfiction Archive

Stricken

Severus discovered a few surprises upon returning to his quarters that evening. For one, there was now an additional bedroom present, and within it, he found a battered trunk which presumably belonged to the small traumatized third year he still had in his arms.

"Hmph," he grunted, knowing that it was Albus's way of apologizing to him.

He lay Harry down on the bed, tucking him under the bedclothes carefully. The boy's eyes were still open, staring out listlessly as he moved around his prone form. He carefully removed his glasses and placed them on the bedside table gently. He had no desire to transfigure Harry's uniform into pajamas, so he went to the end of the bed and opened the trunk's lid to find the boy's own.

He was not prepared to be faced with a pile of what looked like barely recognizable rags. Not aware of doing so, he sunk to the floor and began hunting through the grayish heap; his movements becoming more and more feverish as he realized the extent of the damaged clothes.

Finally, he made himself stop. He leaned back on his heels, nearly panting in his fury at the child's reprehensible relatives. There had been signs that Harry's family didn't get on with him as well as he would have previously presumed, but he had firmly looked past those would-be concerns; far too entranced with seeing James Potter in the lad, as opposed to just Harry.

Standing, he wiped a trembling hand down his face and then with barely another thought, he reduced the rubbish down to ash and banished it out of his sight. With another small flick of his wand, he summoned a pair of black cotton pajamas from his room and then shrunk them down to a more manageable size.

He undressed Harry quickly, but paused before putting the pajamas on. With a frown, he reached out a hand and rolled the child over on his stomach, hissing in newfound dismay as he saw the number of scars present on the thin frame. A few timeless moments passed, and then Harry shivered and drew his arms and legs in closer to his stomach, breaking Severus from his stricken reverie. Severus reached for the pajamas once more and finished dressing the boy in a matter of seconds, pulling the covers up around his ears after.

Then he pulled the desk chair over to the bed and transfigured it into an ottoman long enough for him to stretch out on. He summoned a blanket from his linen closet and then turned the lights down a bit.

Lying on the flat cushioned surface, Severus stared up into the darkness for a long time, his thoughts on a multitude of things as he further processed the unsettling paradigm shift that had taken place that evening.

. . .

At some point in the night, Harry's eyes had closed and he had dropped into a mercifully quiet sleep. It was only sometime before dawn that his nightmares began, roughly rousing Severus from his own fitful dreams.

"No! Stop!" The boy screamed out abruptly into the early morning quiet.

Severus shot upright, his hand on his wand, his eyes darting every which way as he quickly tried to remember where he was. It suddenly hit him that it was Harry—Lily's Harry that was screaming beside him. He was upright and perched on the head of the boy's bed less than a heartbeat after that, quickly adjusting the ambient light in the room in order to better see Harry's face.

"Please!" Harry screamed thrashing around, his face already tear streaked and red from his sobs.

Not exactly sure if he should—or even could—offer comfort in such a way, Severus hesitantly put his arms around Harry's skinny frame and pulled him up against his chest carefully. The sobs didn't die down and the misery didn't end, but Harry stopped thrashing almost immediately, and he allowed himself one small breath of relief.

He adjusted them both, rearranging the pillows behind his back with a brief touch of wandless magic and then leaned back more comfortably. If necessary, he would sit there all day with the lad, but he hoped it didn't come to that.

"Why—Why did he do it?"

The whispered question came out of nowhere, and he blinked down at the boy in mild surprise. Red rimmed eyes were looking up at him with more much pain than any thirteen year old boy ought to possess.

"I do not have an answer for you, Harry," he answered with a shake of his head.

Tears were working their way down those bright flushed cheeks with a renewed vigor, and he stroked the boy's hair lightly; knowing better than most that offering empty promises would not help the boy to heal any faster.

The child's body shuddered against his own, but he remained calm and quiet. It seemed that Harry would talk to him if and when he was ready to, and until then he could wait.

As he had predicted, it was several minutes before the boy in his arms spoke again.

"Professor," Harry's voice cracked and he looked down at the child with a softer expression, his dark eyes hiding his pain as he waited.

"Harry?" He whispered, moving the small body farther up so that the boy's messy head rested gently on his shoulder.

"He put his—," the sentence was broken by a sob and the feel of Harry shaking his head back and forth just under Severus's chin. "He put his . . . he put it in me," the child sobbed harder, small fingers clenching uselessly against the soft surface of his robe.

Severus didn't have to hear what the boy couldn't voice to know what the lad was talking about. It was that same image that had haunted his sleep, and he gritted his teeth to keep from growling aloud.

"He put his—," Harry tried again, voice rising hysterically in his distress. "He put it inside of me."

Now Severus did shush him, tightening his arms around him as he continued to stroke the boy's hair.

He could only think of one other point in his life when he had felt nearly as helpless, and that had been over twelve years ago; the night that Harry had been orphaned and he had been unable to stop it.

He didn't know why Harry seemed to find him a safe figure. They certainly had not gotten along prior to this tragedy, but after the wreck of a meeting with Dumbledore, it was now clear that Severus had somehow become something of a safe harbor to the traumatized boy.

It didn't seem like nearly enough.


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