Potions and Snitches
Snape and Harry Gen Fanfiction Archive

Author's Chapter Notes:
Upon re-reading, I am unsure if Severus is OOC here ... too friendly.

On the other hand, I have always held the opinion that his rudeness to people is rooted in insecurity - he feels threatened by them. With a house elf, this wouldn't be the case.

What do you think?
Chapter 2
When Severus woke in the morning, it was from the soft clearing of someone’s throat.

Standing before him was a house elf, clad in a sensible navy blue dress with the Hogwarts coat of arms embroidered on the chest. A free elf, then – it was not unusual for them to come to Hogwarts.

The elf had her arms crossed. “Good morning, Mr. Snape, sir. What will your lady guest want for breakfast?”, she asked, radiating all the disapproval a human landlady might have for one of her lodgers bringing a lady guest despite house rules explicitly forbidding it.

Had she been human, Severus would most likely have yelled at her, but with a house elf, he hesitated long enough to consider that she might actually have a good reason for her disapproval.

“Ah, yes. My lady guest. There is a ... problem.”

“Is there, now?”, she retorted, her voice holding almost as much acid as his own would.

Severus found himself almost smiling. He liked her. “The lady will not wake up. I had not planned on bringing her here, but, you see, she was tended to by a male healer.”

The house elf’s forehead creased in disapproval.

Very well. They understood each other. “When he ... attempted to take advantage of her unconscious state, I thought it better to remove her from that neglectful institution.” He paused. “She will, obviously, require a female carer. Someone with a strong sense of propriety and the ability to protect her.” Severus carefully raised his shoulders a bit, then let them fall again. “I have been thinking about whom I could ask ... most people would likely tell me that I ought to trust the hospital that let this happen in the first place ...”

Fire blazed in the house elf’s amber eyes, somewhat reminding Severus of Lily. “Lizzy will ...” The elf interrupted herself. “I will take care of the matter.”

So Lily had been right with her suspicions. The annoying way of speaking that house elves had was taught to them as a mark of their slave status. This house elf obviously made an effort to train herself out of it.

“You will? Then you shall have my utmost gratitude. You understand the need for secrecy? You are a free elf, you are not bound to the headmaster.”

“I will not tell anyone but other house elves.”

“Thank you.” He bowed his head, deeper than he ever would have to a human. There was no underestimating the importance of respect in dealing with magical beings. “Now, as for breakfast, my lady friend – her name is Lily, by the way – will have a nutrition potion I will start brewing immediately.”

“And for you, sir?”

Severus hesitated. He had never been asked what he wanted before. If he didn’t eat in the Great Hall, Dumbledore would send a house elf with whatever Dumbledore thought fit. “A cheese sandwich should do. And perhaps a cup of coffee, if it isn’t too much of an inconvenience.”

It only occurred to him when he was halfway through his sandwich and almost done with the potion that he had not asked whether the house elf would have to stack caring for Lily on top of her kitchen work.

He hoped they had some leeway. At least the free ones.



***


Lily had already resigned herself to never being able to move again when she and her husband were relocated to the permanent ward.

Visitor numbers had dwindled, and Lily couldn’t blame her friends – they couldn’t know she was dying of boredom.

She wondered whether James was truly unconscious, or in the same state as she.

The last one left, with Sirius unjustly in prison, was Remus. Lily knew because he would occasionally talk to them.

Someone entered the room quietly and sat on the unoccupied chair on Lily’s side of the bed, but Remus didn’t acknowledge him. Strange.

Had Remus fallen asleep? No, his breathing was normal.

Dumbledore, perhaps, the old meddler? It would be like him to turn himself invisible and just watch Remus. Lily would have smiled if she had been able to control the muscles of her face. The Hogwarts headmaster had a tendency to poke his nose into everything, which was why they had decided against him as secret keeper. Good dear old Dumbledore ... he wouldn’t have betrayed them.

It would have been, Lily thought bitterly, more than worth his increased control over their lives to have made him the secret keeper instead of Peter.

Remus rose. “Goodnight Lily, James. I better get home before darkness.”

Again, Lily would have smiled. Anyone who heard him speak would assume the mild-mannered man was afraid of being robbed if he walked home in the darkness.

It must be a full moon, then. The only means of measuring time that she had left after they had put her on a potion that stopped her menstruation. (And was also not safe to use in the long term, but Lily wasn’t too concerned about that. Death might be a mercy.)

Full moons always meant Remus left early.

And he always said goodbye.

If only ... if only they had at least told Remus about changing the secret keeper. Sirius could have taken Harry. Sirius would feed the boy only fast food and sweets and take him for rides on his flying motorbike, but he would have loved him.

With Petunia ... Lily was not so sure.

Tuney had been a good mother to all her dolls, yes, but it wasn’t the same. How would she react if Harry didn’t fit into her perfect little family?

Lost in thought, Lily noticed only after some more hours must have passed that the other visitor had fallen asleep. His breathing had changed to a slower, more regular rhythm. Amazing what things one managed to pay attention to when there wasn’t any other entertainment.

If she had been able to see, she’d probably not even noticed the quiet breathing.


The sound of footsteps approached, then stopped at Lily’s side on the bed. Something was wrong, she knew at once.

There was something off about the man’s breathing. It was too heavy. The man could only be a visitor, or a healer going about his routine tasks, there was no reason for him to ...

A clammy hand on her thigh. It was not yet time for her sponge bath, it was night, there was no good reason -

What was he doing? Horror crept over Lily when she realized what the man was about to do to her.

She couldn’t fight back, couldn’t will even an eyelid to move.

“Stupefy!”, someone hissed. Something heavy sank to the floor with a dull thud.

There was something familiar about the voice, but it wasn’t Dumbledore.

A hand gently pulled her nightgown over her legs again, then took her arm.

Lily felt a familiar sensation behind her navel. Portkey.

She fervently hoped that it was her invisible visitor who had stunned the man who had tried to assault her, not the other way round.

The first thing she noticed was that she was cold. Something was draped over her.

“Protego horribilis”, a voice murmured.

And Lily finally recognized the voice. Severus.

That explained why he had been invisible. He couldn’t have risked being seen in public, not with everyone suspecting he was a Death Eater. No one had seen him on a raid, but that didn’t have to mean anything.

Severus had never been violent. His interest in Dark Magic had always been rather theoretical. Oh, he would do his research in the restricted section of the library all right, but when it came to spells he actually used ...

The worst had been this curse she had seen him use in the upper years, which had made a slight cut on James’ face.
James had said it was dark magic because the scar never fully vanished, but Lily had scoffed at the notion. Surely, a dark spell would do more damage!

No, Severus wouldn’t be in the fights. He would be helping with the strategy, so the fact no one had seen him, the fact he hadn’t been there when the Death Eaters came to torture James and her, didn’t mean anything.

Still, Lily didn’t think he would harm her. Some other muggleborn, perhaps, but not her.


It felt like an eternity, and Lily noticed that she was alone shortly before someone reappeared.

Severus conjured a stretcher and lifted her onto it with a spell. Covered her with what must be an invisibility cloak – the fabric felt just as soft as she remembered from James’.

Then, he started walking, his feet rustling the old leaves on the forest floor. Lily floated next to him.

“You are safe now”, he whispered, his voice soft and gentle, a tone she had only ever heard him use with her, no one else. “You are safe, Lily. I will not let them harm you again.”

Her Sev. Good old Sev. He hadn’t changed all that much.

She thought she would cry, and she actually hoped she would, so he might know she was aware of her surroundings, but it didn’t happen.

After a seemingly endless trek, they entered slightly warmer surroundings.

And then they went down, down, down. Dungeons? But Lily was not afraid. If Sev brought her to the cellar, then to hide her the better from her enemies.

There was, after all, little use in lying to a person who couldn’t move at all.

They entered a warmer space still, doors were opened and closed.

She heard the rustling of fabric, then felt surrounded by a spell that lowered her onto ... a bed, she decided, it must be a bed.

Severus covered her with a thick blanket – was it a duvet, even – and sighed.

Some spells later, the air was pleasantly warm.

“Good night, Lily.” Soft steps, the door was opened, then closed.

Lily was alone. Damned incompetent healers, the news of Mr. and Mrs. James Potter – sometimes she really wished she had kept her name so they wouldn’t be able to pretend she didn’t even have her own first name! - being completely unaware of their surroundings must have been in the Daily Prophet.

So of course Sev wouldn’t think it necessary to keep her company.

At least he had been courteous enough to tell her he was on her side. Though perhaps that was just because he wanted to convince himself he would do the right thing?

No, he hadn’t sounded undecided at all. There had been that protective anger in his voice that she hadn’t heard since ... oh, it was so long ago. No one in Slytherin had called her a mudblood, ever, after that incident in second year. Except Sev.

Finally, Lily managed to fall asleep.

When she woke, it was to the chipper “Good morning, madam” of a house elf.

“Madam need not worry, Lizzy will take good care of madam. Mr. Snape will have the nutrition potion ready in no time at all.”

The blanket was removed and Lily realized, belatedly, that the diapers they had put on her at St. Mungo’s were soiled. The vanishing spell that kept them clean must have worn off – usually, a nurse would renew it once a day.

“Lizzy is sorry for the inconvenience, but there is no need to be embarrassed, madam. Lizzy knows what to do, Lizzy used to take care of old mistress when old mistress couldn’t move anymore.”

The diapers were removed, and Lily found herself floating in the air once more.

“Madam will want a bath, after this disgusting man touched her.”

Yes. Yes, Lily did want a bath.

“Mr. Snape didn’t mention any details, but the healer must have done something very improper, or he would not have noticed. Wizards are so blind to such things, they always find an excuse.”

Good old Sev. She had often complained about his pessimism and all around dark view of the world, his thinking the worst of anyone, an attitude that only made an exception for his Slytherin friends.

She wouldn’t ever complain again. That was, if she ever was able to talk again, at all.

He must have seen the man pull up her nightgown and immediately suspected wrongdoing. Surely, Sev wouldn’t have noticed the man’s heavy breathing. One usually didn’t pay attention to such things when one could simply open one’s eyes.

“There, now we will have you nice and clean again in no time at all. Lizzy will make sure to have the sheets changed, too.” The house elf was silent for a while, and Lily only heard the sound of running water. “I will make sure the sheets are changed. It is hard to talk properly, but Li- I must make the effort.”

Ha! She had known it all along! The old pureblood families intentionally taught their house elves poor grammar, so people would look down on them.
It was amazing how much joy one could derive from the little things, like being proven right, when there weren’t any big things anymore.

“But perhaps not now. Lizzy has to explain things. There is a bathtub, right here, yes, and Lizzy will wash madam, and there’s no need to be embarrassed, because Lizzy is just a house elf and doesn’t count.”

Oh, poor thing!

“And also becaue Lizzy is female and that is proper enough, yes. Mr. Snape said so. Mr. Snape wanted to ask one of madam’s friends, but they wouldn’t understand that madam can’t go back to the hospital. Lizzy knows. Wizards do not care, oh no. They will say, oh, the poor man, he made a mistake, but he won’t do it again, no worries! Old master, that is, young master, but he is not master anymore, he was very, very cruel to poor young mistress, yes he was, and all his friends knew, and no one cared. All her friends knew, too, and her parents knew, and they didn’t care, either.” The house elf – Lizzy – huffed. “But madam must not be upset, that is all long past, and Lizzy is a free elf now. Lizzy used to be called Dust, but that is not a real name, is it, now, so Lizzy gave herself a new name.” The sound of water stopped. “The water is nice and warm now, but not too hot. There.”

The nightgown was removed and Lily felt herself be lowered into warm water.

“Lizzy will wash madam’s hair. And then Lizzy will ask Mr. Snape what madam’s favourite hairstyle is. A braid would look nice, perhaps?”

Again, Lily would have smiled had she been able to. Finally someone gave her a running commentary on everything that happened. The talking might have been annoying had she been able to see, but as things were, she could have cried with relief.

Finally someone told her what was going on!

The only thing she didn’t know was where they were.

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