For a moment, Jay thought that despite everything, Snape was going to reach forward and throttle them. His breath caught and he wondered if he'd perhaps gone just a bit too far as he scooted backwards as fast as he could, nearly falling off the opposite edge of the bed. Freak hovered perilously close to the front, his panic tearing up their eyes and making their body tremble.

For once, another adult saved the day.

"Severus!" Madam Pomfrey snapped, her hands planted firmly on her hips, as she glared the taller wizard down. "Would you stop that at once, can't you see you're terrifying the poor child?"

Poor child? I am not a poor child! Jay thought indignantly as he straightened from his instinctively defensive crouch, trying to act like it was a natural movement.

No, but shall we go with it? Since it's saving our arse from your stupidity? Tom inquired acidly, and Jay flushed.

"He may have been more profane than you are accustomed to, but he has a right to know what's going on, and I'm not surprised that Harry doesn't like people muttering behind his back about him. There is no need for you to act like he's committed a heinous crime and there's certainly no need for you to threaten the boy! Particularly after what the medical scans showed, what were you thinking?"

At the end of this rather inspired tirade, Jay was interested and slightly pleased to note that Severus's face had returned to its normal colour and he actually looked a bit cowed under the mediwitch's wrath. That was new. Normally anyone who was invested in yelling at them or even hitting them round a bit was encouraged and shown how to do it better. For someone to defend them was unheard of.

Of course, what happened next was even more unheard of.

"You...are right, Poppy," Severus said as though he had to force every word out. He turned to Jay and actually stooped down a little, trying to stay unthreatening. "Potter-Harry, I am sorry. I should not have reacted the way I did-again! I do not approve of bad language, but Madam Pomfrey is right, I apologise for talking about you for so long behind your back."

Jay's mouth gaped open in shock. For once, he had nothing smart to say. His heels beat an impatient tattoo against the bed rail as the system as a whole tried to comprehend the apology they'd just been given.

It was one thing for Snape to have apologised last night when Freak had a massive panic attack. This time, his anger had been entirely precipitated by Jay's smart mouth, and should have resulted in a quick beating. Freak had been preparing himself for it, Blue had readied herself for it, the whole system had been convinced they were about to be cuffed in the head and perhaps even given a swift pummeling with a belt, like Uncle Vernon was wont to do.

"Thank you," Jay finally managed to squeak out. "Sorry for swearing...sir," he added hastily at Tom's internal glare.

"Now," Madam Pomfrey interjected, plumping herself down into a fairly cozy-looking cushioned chair. "About those diagnostic results..."

Jay squirmed under her intent gaze. Sympathetic though it was, her eyes seemed to burn a hole through him.

"Honestly, Harry, by all rights, you should be dead," she stated bluntly. Inside, Harry paled. They had known it objectively (how could they not, living as they did?) but to hear it so baldly put was unsettling. "The amount of broken bones and bruised internal organs you have received in the past six years is startling and more than a bit worrying. There are several bones, mainly in your right arm and your ankle, that need to be re-broken and set properly. You're also horribly malnourished, and your bones are weak from lack of essential vitamins and minerals, which is what's been contributing to how easily your bones break, I imagine.

"All in all, your scans show a deplorable amount of abuse and neglect, and before you try to come up with some kind of convincing story to deny it, Professor Snape has already told me the events of last night, and how you pleaded not to go back to your guardians. And the fact that they abandoned you in a parking lot. Does that about sum it up?"

Dazed, Jay nodded. This woman was good. Too good, he scowled. He would have had no trouble fooling her on the outside, but then again, regular doctors couldn't wave a stick and find out everything that had ever happened to you!

"Now, you're going to stay here in the Hospital Wing today and tomorrow, so that I can mend those bones and we can start trying to fix your malnutrition. It will be perfectly safe. No one will know that you are here..." she darted a quick, unreadable glance at Snape. "Not even the Headmaster."

"Thank you," Tom smoothly slid out, inclining his head respectfully. She stared at him for a moment, and then nodded once to herself, struggling up from her chair.

"Well then, lie back, go on, go," she said, pushing and prodding until Tom was safely ensconced beneath the crisp white sheets. "Might as well get started now, eh? Now, this will hurt a bit, but it shouldn't hurt for more than a moment, okay? If it does, tell me."

She pointed her wand at their right arm and murmured a few words under her breath. Red light lanced out of it, spiraling tightly around their arm before vanishing with a barely perceptible pop.

Then all was pain.