The moment Severus heard his godson call for him he found himself practically flying into the boy's room. He quickly took in the scene as soon as the door flew open, his godson standing in the middle of the room looking terrified but unharmed next to an old Malfoy elf who looked equally frightened and had blood on his hands.

"What happened?" he asked quickly, not sure how to make any immediate sense of the situation.

"Harry Potter is being hurt!" the little elf wailed.

He didn't even have time to question him further before his godson began frantically speaking, "I knew that Potter's relatives weren't really nice to him and I know how that feels and I wanted to make sure he was okay especially since I'm going to be against the Dark Lord and the Death Eaters now and he's really important for that so I gave him a letter before we left school and said I'd contact him again this Summer. I sent Dobby to him and Dobby says he's hurt and he won't wake up!" the boy exclaimed.

It took a moment for Severus to make out what the boy had just said but then he felt himself pale. His godson had just told him that his other godson was severely injured and possibly dead.

"Accio Emergency Potions Kit!" he called and a small pouch flew towards his hand, he grabbed it and turned to the elf, "Dobby, can you take me to Harry?" he asked, knowing that the house elf would be able to get him there the quickest.

"Dobby will take you right now!" the little creature said before grabbing his arm.

Suddenly, with only a quick moment of disorientation, he was standing in a dark room. He cast a quick lumos, happy to find himself already facing the wall with a light switch, he quickly turned it on and canceled his light spell before turning around. There was a tiny body lying on the ground, still curled loosely into a ball, one arm clearly broken. The lack of clothing made it instantly clear that the situation could be nothing more than abuse. What skin wasn't covered in blood was covered in bruises and he found himself mentally cursing both his boss and himself for trusting the man and never checking on his godson himself.

He ignored the frantic hooting of the boy's owl and quickly knelt next to the child and felt for a pulse, breathing a sigh of relief when he found one. With that done, he quickly conjured a piece of parchment before casting a field diagnostic spell and watching as words appeared on the page. The spell would alert him only to injuries that were life threatening or that would make it dangerous to move the boy. He would wait until they were out of this horrific place before casting a normal diagnostic and fully healing the child.

The words that appeared on the parcement alerted him to the fact that the boy was losing a lot of blood and had a broken rib that was dangerously close to puncturing his lung. Relieved that Harry's life wasn't in any immediate danger, he gently moved the boy so that he could see the broken rib and then with careful spellwork, moved the rib back into position. With that done, he opened his potions kit and pulled out a pain reliever and a blood replenisher from the padded pouches before spelling both potions into the child's stomach. Afterwards, he scanned the floor near the boy before spotting the child's broken glasses and placing them in his pocket.

He turned to the elf who was watching the scene, "Gather the child's things. He will not be coming back here." he said.

Suddenly a few items floated out from under the child's bed, and the owl's cage moved closer as the door suddenly flew open and a trunk and a broom suddenly flew into the room, landing at the elf's feet. The elf released the owl, opening the window with a wave of his hand and shrunk the rest of the boy's belongings to fit inside the trunk before shrinking that as well. As the elf dealt with Harry's belongings, Severus cast a spell to clean the blood off of the child and was appalled at the number of wounds he was then able to see.

He cleaned the dirty and raggedy blanket lying in a crumpled ball beside the child's bed with a quick charm before transfiguring it into a much nicer looking blanket. It wouldn't last long, but it would do for the moment. He wrapped the boy in the blanket before picking him up and turning to the elf who was holding the boy's trunk in his hand.

"Take us back to my quarters." He told Dobby and the elf quickly grabbed his arm and after another moment of disorientation, he was standing in his sitting room.

"I need you to go back to the house and do not let his relatives leave until the auror's arrive. They did this." He once again told the elf and Dobby's face quickly turned into one of almost frightening anger before he sat down the shrunken truck on a nearby table and disappeared.

He shifted the boy's weight onto one arm before transfiguring his sofa into a bed and placing the boy on it, filing away the thought of just how little the child weighed for later. A few seconds later, another piece of parchement had been conjured and a list of the Harry's injuries was slowly appearing.

"Will he be alright?" Severus heard a voice say and he turned around to see his godson staring at the other boy, trying to look calm but clearly even paler than usual.

"Physically, yes, I believe so. Please go to your room until I have healed him. You would not have wanted him to see your injuries." He told the child, watching him walk away before turning back to the injured boy.

As soon as his eyes found the child, he noticed a spot of blood appearing on the blanket and he quickly picked up the parchment and scanned the list of injuries, desperately hoping it was not what it looked like. The list only confirmed his suspicions and he suddenly sank into the chair next to the bed, fighting a very strong temptation to go back to the Dursley house and kill the boy's uncle – because either he had done it, or he had known about it. There was no other option.

The weight of guilt felt like it was going to crush him. He had failed both his godsons. Both boys had been abused and Harry … Harry had been raped, repeatedly based on what the diagnostic spell was telling him. If Draco hadn't been the one to pick up that something was wrong, he would have never known. He couldn't even be sure that Harry would have survived the Summer. That broken rib could have easily punctured a lung if it had been left untreated and the child was already severely malnourished, almost starving. Draco had saved his godbrother and he didn't even realize it.

He fought his way out of his own shock and stood up to begin healing the child. He gently removed the blanket and began running his wand over the bleeding welts obviously left by a belt. He sealed the few wounds on the child's chest before turning him over and dealing with the welts on his back. With the wounds sealed and the bleeding stopped, he began the complicated series of spells needed to stop the internal bleeding that had resulted from the most recent rape. Several minutes later, he had finally stopped the last of the bleeding and he moved on to setting the child's badly broken arm and broken leg and placing them in magical splints.

With that done, he headed quickly for his storage room to get a large container of bruise balm. The deep bruising the child sported would take a rather long time to heal, but the bruise balm would speed the healing slightly and help with the pain. On a normal, fresh bruise, it would have healed it in no more than a couple of days, but the balm did not work nearly as well on old, deep bruising. Despite what some people seemed to think, magic could not heal everything. The hand-shaping bruising on the child's neck as well as in several places on his arms only angered him further. The Durlsey's would pay for harming this child.

He set about carefully applying the balm to the many bruises on the child's body, hoping to get it done before the child awoke. It seemed that it had been the pain that had caused the boy to lose consciousness – possibly combined with slight exhaustion as he had not woken up once he had been given the pain potion – and he could wake up at any moment. With that done, he stepped away and covered the child back up. It was usually best for a patient to drink the potion rather than have it spelled into their stomachs and as such, he would wait to give the child the potions to heal the broken bones and the nutrient potion until he was awake. He had a feeling that the boy would need another pain potion then as well.

"Kenzie!" he called, causing a small Hogwarts elf to appear in front him, his personal favorite elf, though few knew it, "Can you please get me a pair of hospital pajamas for this boy. They will have to be very small." He requested, looking at the child and wondering why he had never truly taken in just how little Harry was.

"That be Harry Potter!" the little elf gasped, "Is Harry Potter okay?"

"He will be now, but he needs the pajamas." He told her, causing her to nod and disappear before almost instantly appearing back in front of him.

"These be the pajamas that Miss Poppy uses for Harry Potter." She said, handing the pajamas over as he wondered how many purebloods would beg to know how binding spell for the Hogwarts elves had been changed to allow them to touch clothing. A Hogwarts Elf could only be freed if the Headmaster verbally told them so.

Severus thanked the elf and used a quick spell to dress the boy in the clothing she had brought before pulling the child's glasses out of his pocket and quickly casting a spell to fix them before setting them on the table next to his still shrunken trunk and heading for his floo. Luckily, the Headmaster was in today, having come back to Hogwarts after the Malfoy's trial. He would have to call the man in and speak to him in the dining room so as not to leave the boys in his care. He would have to use the one-way silencing charm though, he needed to hear his godsons, but they did not need to hear him yelling at their Headmaster.

Draco had been waiting rather impatiently in his room for what felt to him like ages when he heard the sound of the floo. Stepping cautiously into the hallway, he spotted his godfather standing in the sitting room with the Headmaster, who was staring at Harry with a look of shock and horror on his face.

"I need to speak to the Headmaster in the dining room. You may wait for me in the sitting room, but please let … Mr. Potter wake on his own." His godfather said as soon as he spotted him.

Draco quickly nodded and made his way into the room, sitting down in a chair near the sofa-turned-bed. The other boy had been covered completely with a blanket, but he could still make out what looked to be fairly severe bruising on his neck and some fading bruises on his face as well. He remembered the sight he had seen earlier of Potter wrapped in a blanket, with blood started to seep through it in multiple spots and he felt vaguely sick. He didn't think he had ever looked that bad.

Lucius had always kept the damage to his back, insuring that there was nothing that a small glamour couldn't cover up if necessary. His father had never been willing to leave any kind of visible wounds and he hadn't been willing to cause any serious damage. He hadn't given up on Draco yet, he had still wanted him alive and healthy to carry on the Malfoy name. It didn't look like Potter's relatives had even cared that much.

He felt guilty at waiting so long to check on the other boy. At the time, he hadn't expected Potter's relatives to be any worse than his father and he had simply decided that the plan worked best if he took care of one thing at a time. He didn't know what to think now. He had spent the last two years pretending to hate the other boy and now he knew things that he knew Potter didn't want anyone to know and he was sitting beside him while he was unconscious. His plan had never involved this.

He had thought that by helping Potter out he might simply be able to get a do-over and maybe make a friend on the light side of things to help with his transition. He had thought that maybe if he helped The-Boy-Who-Live end up in a Wizarding home with people that actually cared about him, that might be able to help the light a little bit since the other boy would almost certainly be important in bringing down Voldemort if the whisperings he had heard about some kind of prophecy were any indication. Now Potter was in his godfather quarters unconscious and he had no idea what was going to come of this.

He craned his neck a little to look into the dining room and was surprised to see that his godfather appeared to be yelling at the Headmaster. He leaned back in his chair with a confused look on his face. There had to be something more going on than he realized. He hoped that his godfather would explain it once the Headmaster had gone. He didn't like it when there were missing pieces of information, you couldn't plan for anything if you didn't know everything you needed to. Draco didn't like not having a plan.

Draco suddenly spotted the tiny truck sitting on the end table next to Potter's glasses and leaned forward to examine it. It must be Potter's trunk. If they had brought it back with them, that must mean that Severus had gotten Dobby to pack. He felt another pang of understanding. He knew what it was like to have all your belongings stuffed into two containers – or one in Potter's case. His trunk and bag might have held a lot, but it still felt awful to be so in limbo with all you owned in a trunk or bag instead of in a room where you belonged. He had only just begun to wonder where Potter would end up living now when he noticed the other boy slowly beginning to stir.

Harry woke up to pain all over his body. He groaned softly and was just about to open his eyes when he suddenly realized that he should have been in a lot more pain. A wave of confusion hit him and he carefully opened his eyes, trying to fight back panic when the blurry room in front of him didn't look familiar.

"Potter?" a voice said, startling him even more, "Oh, your glasses are here." The voice added, seeming to notice his fear and confusion.

A blurry hand appeared in his line of sight holding what he assumed were his glasses and he reached out to take them before quickly placing them on his face. It wasn't until he saw who had handed the glasses to him that he registered who the voice had belonged to. His eyes widened as he starred at Draco Malfoy.

"Where am I?" he asked, trying to hide his fear.

"You're in Hogwarts, in my godfather's quarters." the other boy replied, "Professor Snape's Quarters." he added, seeming to realize that Harry didn't understand.

"Why?" he asked, almost more baffled then scared at this point, Snape couldn't really do anything worse to him then his uncle had.

"I told you I'd contact you again if everything went like I planned." The other boy explained and Harry's mind flashed back to the letter he had received before the end of school, "It did. My parents … they're in Azkaban and I'm living with my Uncle Severus now. Dobby still comes when I call him, I assume because we always got along well, and so I asked him to check on you. He found you really hurt and I called Uncle Severus to help. Dobby took him to you and he brought you back here and healed you."

"He healed me?" Harry exclaimed softly, even more confused than before.

"Of course he did. And he's in the dining room yelling at Dumbledore now. Probably about what happened to you, but I don't really know why." Draco explained before sitting back and seeming to decide to let Harry take in the information he had just been given.

All indications were that Draco Malfoy really had been telling the truth in that letter and if that wasn't confusing enough, now he was being told that Severus Snape had been the one to find him and he'd actually taken him away from the Dursley's and healed his injuries? His whole world felt like it had been turned upside down. Suddenly his mind rushed back to one thing the other boy had said. Snape had healed him. That meant that his profession knew. Not only about the beatings, but if he had used the spell that Madam Pomfrey usually did when he got hurt then he knew everything. The professor that had always seemed to hate him now knew exactly what his uncle had done to him.

His secret was out. Not only did two people he thought of as some of his biggest enemies know, but he knew they would tell everyone. That had probably been the whole reason for this, to get proof of what had happened and let the whole Wizarding World know. He didn't have anywhere to go now. He couldn't stay in the Wizarding World and he didn't think he could survive being at the Dursley's year round again. He didn't even realize that he was hyperventilating until he heard a panicked voice yelling beside him.

"Uncle Severus!" the other boy called and suddenly Snape and Dumbledore both ran into the room.

"Calm down, Harry." Snape said, baffling the boy, "No one is going to harm you here. Calm down."

When Harry didn't react Dumbledore spoke up as well, seeming to break himself out of a state of shock, "You are safe my boy, I promise." he said.

Harry slowed his breathing slightly, but didn't seem to be able to do any more, "Drink this. It's a calming drought." Snape said, holding a vile in front of him and he would have refused except for the fact that Dumbledore was standing right next to the man.

He took the vile with shaking hands and downed it quickly, relieved to find his breathing beginning to calm almost instantly, "Please don't let them tell!" he begged the Headmaster as soon as he could speak.

"I am not going to tell anyone other than the aurors who will be arresting your 'relatives' and they will be sworn to secrecy." the potions professor said, Harry continued to eye him distrustfully, looking even more startled at the mention of aurors and the man shot a look at Dumbledore before speaking again, "The Headmaster is going to explain things to you."

The older man sighed heavily, sitting on the edge of the bed Harry was in before he began to explain, "Severus was a spy for me, for the side of the light during the last war. I knew that Voldemort was not truly dead – as you have seen – and I wanted Severus to maintain his cover for when Voldemort returned to power. However, when Severus testified under Veritaserum – truth serum – at the Malfoy's trial, the truth came out. Now that … this has happened, Severus has asked me to explain some things to you." the man said.

Harry slowly nodded, remembering Hermione mentioning Veritaserum at some point and suddenly understanding why Dumbledore had always trusted Snape. The calming potion seemed to keep him from reacting with any kind of shock and he simply accepted what he was being told as the new truth, as strange as it was.

"You were born in the height of a war, Harry. Your parents chose to name two sets of godparents for you in an attempt to insure that no matter what happened, there would still be someone to care for you. Severus was your mother's best friend and as such, he is one of your godfather's." He informed Harry, pausing to let that fact sink in and giving a tiny amused smile at the gasp from the other boy, "When your parents were killed, both Severus and your remaining godmother wanted to take you, but the sacrifice your mother had made left powerful wards that could be set up at the home of someone related to her if you resided there with them. In addition, I thought it would be safest for you to be somewhere no Death Eater would guess to look. After quite a while, I was able to convince them both, though I had to also remind Severus that he needed to remain a spy."

"Who is my godmother?" Harry asked, still in a slight daze from the calming potion.

"Alice Longbottom, your friend Neville Longbottom's mother. However, something happened weeks later that left her incapable of caring for you even if I had agreed to leave you with her. I believe it would be best if you asked Mr. Longbottom about that." The man explained before continuing, "I had left someone to keep an eye on you, but I neglected to realize that she was obviously not capable of watching you very well. I knew that you were not loved as much as your cousin, but I thought the wards made up for that. I never knew that you were being harmed. When Severus questioned me about you, I stretched the truth rather far and told him that you were happy and healthy in your new home to keep him from going against my wishes and when it came time for you to join Hogwarts, I told him to treat you badly so that no one would suspect his true allegiance was with the Light. I convinced him that he would do you more good remaining a spy. I am dreadfully sorry for what my mistakes have led to." the Headmaster told him, looking older then Harry had ever seen him.

Harry nodded slowly, trying to make sense of what he had just been told and Dumbledore stood, announcing that he needed to leave before stepping back through the floo. Snape was his godfather and he had been ordered by Dumbledore to treat him the way he always had. Nothing seemed to make sense anymore and he had no idea how to react to this.

He looked up to see Draco shooting confused looks at Snape and the man seemed to take this as his queue, sitting in the spot Dumbledore had just left, "I promise you, I will not harm you." The man said gently, "As your godfather, I have legal custody of you. I would like it if you would stay with me, but no matter what, you will not go back to your relatives. The Headmaster is going to ask the elves to add a room for you to my quarters and I would like us to try things out for the rest of the Summer, but if after that you do not wish to stay with me, we will find someone else to take you in by next Summer." He offered.

Harry simply nodded, not even sure how to respond. Everything had been changed so much and even with the calming drought, he didn't know how to deal with it. He just hoped that if this man had really been his mother's best friend, then maybe he was someone he could at least trust not to hurt him as his uncle had.

"I need you to take these potions." Snape said, "This is to heal the bones that were broken, this is for pain, this is to help with any blood loss and this is to take the place of some missed meals." he told Harry as he handed each vial to him.

Harry downed the potions having decided to treat the man with at least a small amount of trust and slowly lay back against his pillows. He hoped that maybe it would all make a little more sense in the morning.