A Merry Christmas by Lemon Curd

Closing the school was fine and dandy, Severus would have enjoyed the quiet. What he did not at all enjoy was that the teachers, too, had been banished from Hogwarts while an Auror team failed at finding the Chamber of Secrets.

Even Madam Pomfrey had been forced to desert the hospital wing, and she had employed Severus’ help as well as that of Minerva and Filius to seal the door.

The petrified students didn’t need any care, but they needed to be safe from intruders, the healer had explained.

Severus could see why. He never went to Madam Pomfrey if there was even just the slightest risk of being forced to spend the night there. Never ever would he willingly consent to sleeping in a bed that was in a public space everyone could walk in.

If he had been petrified ... he shuddered at the thought. The students certainly would have taken the opportunity to draw obscene pictures on his face, at the very least. Probably they’d have taken a hammer to his petrified nose, it wouldn’t surprise him.

Potter would have done, and Potter’s brat would do the same if given the opportunity.

Having no access to his Hogwarts laboratory and the library was incredibly annoying, but Severus decided to make the best of it and read up on the newest developments in muggle science.

There was one herbalist in particular who he suspected was a squib. She was regarded with suspicion among muggles, as they didn’t have the basic knowledge her theories were based on.

Her books were only available in this one local branch of the library and Severus suspected the more magical kind of charm had been involved in getting the librarian to acquire and catalogue the books.

Severus was busy browsing the shelves when he saw a trunk. A trunk that looked very much like those sold to Hogwarts students in Diagon Alley.

And there was no student nearby.

He drew his wand and scanned the trunk for magic. Nothing to be found except for a featherweight charm.

Severus opened the trunk and searched the contents for something with a name on it. The few baggy muggle clothes had no name on them, which was against the rules. He found one of Lockhart’s books and opened it.

There, on the front page, in surprisingly neat handwriting, was the name.

Harry Potter.

Severus’ blood ran cold. There was no good reason for Potter’s school trunk to be here without the boy himself.

There was no good reason for Potter to be in London at all.

*

Harry had found a suitable library – smaller than he had hoped, but surprisingly quiet – and had told Hedwig to go sleep on a nearby tree.

Even though it couldn’t be later than midday, he had felt tired and weak and wanted to lie down for a bit, so he had pocketed his wand and left his trunk somewhere else, so someone who found it wouldn’t find Harry at the same time.

Then he’d crawled as far under the nearest bookshelf as possible, made sure his whole body was covered by his invisibility cloak, and shut his eyes.

When he woke up, he didn’t feel better. He felt much, much worse. His mouth was dry and his face hot, but he couldn’t even muster the strength to get up and drink out of the tap in the men’s toilet.

Dusty light fell in through a window, so it couldn’t be so very late. Perhaps he would feel better after sleeping some more.

Or he could let himself be locked in over the night. The thought of food filled him with nausea, anyway, and staying in a warm, dry place would help him get better.

Dudley had always gotten to sleep on the couch when he was sick, and Harry remembered Aunt Petunia telling him that ‘Dudders’ needed a hot water bottle made every two hours so he’d be warm enough.

Of course, Aunt Petunia also had been of the opinion that all kinds of medicines were needed for Dudley to recover from a common cold, and had been furious with the doctor who had refused to prescribe antibiotics.

So she might be wrong. Harry kind of hoped she had been wrong about the hot water bottles. The library must be warm, after all, people wanted to be comfortable there, but Harry still shivered under his many layers of clothing.

He probably had a fever, and just felt cold. Or perhaps he really was cold because his clothes hadn’t dried yet.

In any case, he wouldn’t be comfortably warm anytime soon. He would have to make do with room temperature. He had always managed to recover just fine in his cupboard, but then, he hadn’t been sick all that often ...

*

One spell later, Severus felt a bit better. Potter was nearby, and even better, Potter was the only one who was nearby.

So no one kidnapped the boy, he just ran away.

Completely in character for Potter. Nothing to worry about. The boy probably just wanted to steal a book.

Severus walked towards Potter’s location, browsing the shelves as if he didn’t know the boy was there.
After all, someone much more powerful than Severus himself could possibly disguise her or his identity and presence.

And Severus wasn’t foolish enough to assume that he knew all of the Dark Lord’s servants.

He couldn’t see Potter, but that didn’t surprise him much. There were such things as invisibility cloaks, after all, and a troublemaker with more money than brains would certainly have bought one.

Nearing the space where his spell had located Potter, he extended an arm. The hand that should have touched Potter didn’t touch anything.

Had he been deceived?

Severus stepped even closer to where Potter ought to be.

Or rather, he tried to step forward, but withdrew his foot when he felt something soft under his sole.

Something invisible and soft.

Too soft, in fact, for a shoe.

Potter was lying on the floor.

More troubling even, he didn’t react to being stepped on.

Severus took a deep breath. Now was not the time for panic. He had to act, and fast.

He knelt and felt the soft spot his foot had touched. It was a leg. Severus pulled away the invisibility cloak on Potter’s head, just a bit, just enough to ascertain that it was, in fact, Potter with the characteristic scar.

Potter didn’t wake.

*

Harry was fast asleep. In his dreams, he fought an army of monsters.
He did not know that he had woken, twice before, at the sound of a stranger’s steps, only to fall asleep again when they moved away again.

While Harry could not recall the night his parents died, the memory was there, in his subconscious mind, and so was the knowledge that a stranger’s steps meant mortal danger.

The sound of Professor Snape on the prowl, however, was also very well known to Harry’s subconscious mind, and so was the fact that this sound heralded a scolding and possibly a detention, and nothing worse than that.

Harry’s body sorely needed the sleep, and his subconscious mind made a decision.

In his dream, Professor Snape appeared behind him, stunned the monster in front and began to scold him for recklessly getting himself into trouble.

The scolding made Harry feel so bad that he had to throw up. But he couldn’t throw up, his stomach was too empty for that.

*

Severus scooped the boy up in his arms and apparated home.

He placed the child on the couch and gently removed the invisibility cloak.

No visible injuries.

Severus felt Potter’s forehead, suppressing the revulsion the sight of that mop of unruly hair caused him.

He didn’t need to be a healer to know this was fever, the boy felt like a furnace.

Fever caused by an infected injury, or could it be that Potter was just ill?

Severus took a look at Potter’s hands. No injuries at all. He found the wand in Potter’s pocket. “Priori incantato” he whispered.

The shadow of an animal-to-teacup spell appeared. One of those spells one never needed again after school.

It seemed increasingly unlikely that Potter had been attacked.

Which still didn’t explain what Potter did on the floor of a public library.

Deciding that secrecy was his foremost priority now, Severus apparated back to the library, took Potter’s trunk and returned home.