Severus was mere moments from summoning Dobby to alert Dumbledore and the entire Order of the Phoenix that Harry was missing when he caught a glimpse of the garden shed through the sitting room window, its doors ajar. A quick glance toward the back door confirmed his suspicion: Harry’s coat was gone.

Jumping to his feet, Severus stalked to the window to take a closer look. There, inside the shed, he could just make out a dark huddled shape—Harry bloody Potter. He strode to the back door, yanked the heavy cloak off the peg, and thrust his arms into the sleeves. Then he jammed on hat and gloves as he wrenched open the door and stomped outside.

His jaw clenched, he could practically feel the steam coming out of his ears. Livid would have been an understatement. Technically, Harry had done nothing wrong—he hadn’t left the property, he hadn’t disobeyed any direct orders. He’d merely gone outside. Before sunrise. Without leaving so much as a by-your-leave. Damn the boy for scaring him witless!

Severus tried to get a grip on his anger as he walked hastily toward the shed. The cool wind bit at his face. Why the hell was Harry out here, anyway? And at this time in the morning? And why hadn’t he awoken Severus if he needed something so badly that he went to the magical shed for it?

Gulping in breaths of frigid air, he flexed his fingers, reminding himself over and over that Harry didn’t deserve his temper. But damn the boy to hell for taking ten years off his life! A simple note would have sufficed.

Gritting his teeth, he stepped into the entrance of the shed to see the boy sitting on the cold ground, trembling.

“What in Merlin’s name are you doing out here?” he demanded. When the boy didn’t respond, he snapped, “Look at me when I’m speaking to you!”

Harry’s head came up slowly, unsteadily. Bloodshot pale-green eyes gazed, unseeing, out of a deathly pale face. His lips were a dusky blue hue.

“Harry,” Snape gasped, rushing forward and squatting before the child to check his vitals. Harry’s pulse was weak and his breathing was shallow.

“Bloody fucking hell! I need blankets!” Snape roared.

Stacks of blankets appeared on the floor of the shed. Severus grabbed them up one at a time and shook them out, wrapping one hastily around the boy’s shoulders and legs before adding three more. 

“S-s-s-soooo… c-c-cold…” Harry mumbled, then shook his head, as if to clear it.

Snape tore off his hat and put it on Harry’s head, pulling it down over the boy’s forehead and ears. Then he ripped off his gloves and tried to slide Harry’s hand inside, but the fingers were stiff and frozen. Swearing, Severus transfigured them into mittens and slid them over the blue fingers.

“Can’t f-f-feel my f-f-face…”

“What are you even doing out here?” Severus asked. He spotted Harry’s glasses beside the boy and pocketed them, before scooping the shaking teen into his arms.

“Dunno,” Harry mumbled.

Severus shuddered at the unfocused look in Harry’s eyes and pulled one of the blankets up over the boy’s head as he exited the shed into the frigid winter air.

“You’re bloody lucky I found you, Potter. If I’d slept another hour, you’d be dead,” Severus muttered. “Stupid, insufferable, child. Of all the idiotic things to do. In the middle of winter, no less.”

Severus continued to vent, knowing full well that Harry wouldn’t remember any of it. What had the boy been thinking? Had he no common sense at all?

As Severus rushed to the house, he catalogued what he had on hand to treat hypothermia. It wasn’t a problem he’d thought to plan for. Madam Pomfrey had plenty of potions in stock—potions that he had brewed himself—for the stupid children who spent too much time outdoors in winter and ended up with frostbite, among other things.

And there was his answer, wasn’t it? Settling the shivering child onto the couch, Snape shouted, “Dobby!”

“Drink this,” Snape said, forcing a smoking potion into Harry’s thawing hands.

“Hurts,” Harry breathed, trying to flex stiff fingers around the vial.

“I’m sure it does,” Snape replied, his voice lacking sympathy as anger still spiked through his veins. “That’s what you get for trying to imitate an iceberg.”

Harry drank the potion and then averted his eyes. “Sorry.”

“Care to tell me what you were doing out there?” Snape bit out.

Harry sucked his pink lips between his teeth and tipped his head back, eyes closed, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed.

Oh dear Merlin, don’t you dare cry, Snape thought. He was too angry to deal with Potter’s self-recriminations.

“You could have got yourself killed!” Snape snapped. “If I hadn’t found you when I did…” Snape cursed and turned away. “If you were a Muggle, you would have lost your hands and feet to frostbite, at the very least. You do know what hypothermia is, don’t you, Potter?”

Harry flinched. “Don’t call me that,” he said, his voice a broken whisper.

Snape cursed again. “Tell me what inspired such idiocy. Harry.”

Harry flexed his feet and winced. He was lounging on the couch, still covered in blankets and still wearing Snape’s hat. Snape had conjured hot packs and charmed them to stay warm before stuffing them into the boy’s armpits and groin, followed by packing them around his torso, chest, and neck.

Snape waited, his agitation growing now that Harry was out of immediate danger—at least from the weather.

“I was missing my friends,” Harry murmured.

“And what the bloody hell does that have to do with anything?” Snape practically roared.

“I…” Harry trailed off, averting his gaze.

Leaning over the boy, his nostrils flared, Snape said, “You what?”

“I asked the shed for Ron and Hermione.”

Snape stared, too stunned to react for a few seconds. When he finally spoke, his tone was incredulous. “You asked an inanimate object to produce two living, breathing human beings?”

Harry nodded.

Snape stood up and shook his head. Repeatedly. Of all the asinine, imbecilic things to do. He turned and walked out of the room to prevent himself from strangling the fool child, muttering obscenities all the way.

In the kitchen, he leaned against a worktop and stared at his hands, which still shook from the letdown of adrenaline. He concentrated on breathing—slowly and rhythmically—through his nose. He knew his anger and intolerance stemmed from his fear. Fear of the boy having been abducted again—and right under his nose—to the fear of how close Harry had come to doing himself irreparable damage due to the cold. His anger might not have been rational, but it certainly was real.

He needed to calm down and he needed to cut Harry some slack, but he wasn’t quite capable of that at the moment. Harry would just have to wait.

He forced himself to unclench his jaw, lest he give himself a headache. Then, his hands still shaking, he prepared a warm mug of hot chocolate for the idiot child in the next room. He added a splash of pain reliever to it, as well as a nerve regenerating tonic that would aid the frostbite and core temperature recovery potions he’d already given the boy. The chocolate would mask the bad flavor somewhat, as he didn’t have the patience to listen to any complaints.

He debated adding a Sleeping Draught to the mix just to give himself some time to stew, but decided against it. The boy would just have to listen to Snape’s invective until he got it out of his system.

On second thought, Snape grabbed a vial of Calming Draught and downed it. Then he made a cup of hot chocolate for himself and added a sufficient amount of brandy to it. At least one of them would be warm, he mused mulishly.

Drinks in hand, he made his way back to the sitting room, the vein in his temple twitching.

Harry was finally starting to feel a bit better. The potions Snape had given him had brought his core temperature up, as they had been intended to, and the other potions had slowly reversed the frostbite that had deadened the skin of his extremities. But with the return of feeling came pain: severe, sharp pain; pins and needles pain; and burning agony pain.

He knew he’d been stupid. And he knew Snape was livid with him. But he hadn’t meant to almost freeze to death. He bit tongue to keep from crying out as his fingers and toes throbbed and ached mercilessly. He tried, unsuccessfully, to prevent the tears from falling. When he failed at this, he turned away, burying his face in the blankets and trying to keep from sobbing.

“Harry.”

A hand gripped his chin lightly and pulled his face up. Obsidian eyes stared into his watery ones.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were in pain?” Snape said, his voice sounding exasperated.

“Didn’t want to make you more angry,” Harry muttered.

“Silly child,” Snape mumbled before producing a potion vial. “Drink this,” he instructed. “It won’t take away all the pain—nerve pain is the hardest to treat—but it should make it more bearable.”

“Thanks,” Harry said, draining the vial and handing it back to the Potions master.

Snape nodded and returned to the chair by the fire, picking up his book and ignoring Harry once more.

Harry leaned back against the pillows and waited for the potion to take effect. He thought back on what he’d been through in the last several hours. He wasn’t entirely sure what had happened, as his memory was still a bit fuzzy.

He remembered what had awoken him, though: those eyes—pale blue and wide, their pupils dilated in terror. Just the memory of them made him shudder. He couldn’t think about them without cringing, much less talk about them. Not yet, anyway. He wasn’t ready. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be ready. But one thing was for sure: he couldn’t go back to sleep after seeing them.

He’d lain in bed for hours after that, those eyes gazing unceasingly at him. Unable to escape them, he’d jolted from bed and headed downstairs. He’d paced for a while, hands jammed in his pajama pants pockets, until a thought had occurred to him. The shed! He could ask for Ron and Hermione! It was four in the morning, they’d be tucked up in their beds. No one would miss them. And he wouldn’t have to deal with this all alone! He couldn’t tell them what had prompted him to summon them, of course, but just having them with him would make everything all right. It always did.

He’d hurried to the back door and pulled on the warm coat there, then headed out into the garden. The cold metal of the shed’s door handles had chilled his hands and he’d promptly stuffed them back inside his coat pockets as soon as he’d got the doors open. Then he’d stood confidently in the center of the shed.

“I need Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger,” he’d stated clearly, waiting for them to pop into existence.

He’d envisioned their surprised expressions quickly morphing into ones of joy. “Harry!” they’d shout in unison. Then Hermione would pull him into a tight embrace and Ron would clap him on the back. They’d be full of questions about his well-being and they’d tell him all about what was happening at Hogwarts. It would be brilliant!

When nothing happened, he’d repeated his instruction. “Please bring Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger here, right now.”

His heart pounding, a smile stretched wide on his lips, he’d rocked back and forth on his heels, waiting for one bushy brown-haired head and one red head to pop into existence.

“Ron?” he’d called. “Hermione?”

The rush of excitement and anticipation had begun to fade as he stood, all alone, in the middle of the shed in the dark and cold before dawn. He didn’t want to admit what was staring him right in the face.

They weren’t coming.

The shed had failed him.

“Hedwig?” he’d said, his hope crashing around him. “Can you at least give me Hedwig?” he’d begged.

The wind had whistled against the sides of the shed. A few dead leaves were blown inside, circling and swirling in an eddy against the ground, lit only by faint moonlight.

Desperation and despair had swelled within him.

He’d sunk to the ground, naught but a hollow shell, pulling his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around them.

They weren’t coming.

In his grief, he’d lost track of time. Lost track of hope. Lost track of his sanity.

No one was coming.

His only reality had been the core of empty, endless ice—within and without—that had taken root in his soul.

He was all alone.

Just him and those pale, blue eyes: condemning, reproachful.