A Means of Survival – Chapter 19 – Cause for Exhaustion

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Chapter 19 – Cause for Exhaustion

(Author’s note- I thought I should warn you that this chapter is well over 4K words)

Chapter 19 – Cause for Exhaustion

Severus Snape was exhausted.

Draco Malfoy was missing and Lucius didn’t seem to care. The man was not particularly skilled at occluding his mind, and Severus had taken advantage of that fact when he had notified the pompous twig about his son.

Lucius Malfoy did not know where his son was, nor did he give a damn. In fact, the overriding feeling that Severus had gotten from his mind, in regards to the boy in question, was an overwhelming sense of relief at not having to deal with the situation anymore.

It was common for many of the students in Slytherin to have come from less than optimal home situations. He was intimately familiar with the living conditions of such a home. It was therefore typical, if not altogether normal, for there to be a higher than average rate of dropouts within the Slytherin house itself.

Until recently, the problem was fueled primarily by runaways. Lately however, something had been different, and it had begun bothering Severus deeply.

Less than optimal, he thought sourly to himself; Merlin, howhe hated that phrase.

It had been tossed out to him by Albus, when he had been a student at Hogwarts himself. He had pleaded with the old man not to send him back to his tyrannical father and his twisted methods for enforcing discipline within his household.

Dumbledore, old as sin even when he was a boy, had fumbled around the issue for more than two terms before finally being forced by Severus to give a decision regarding his situation. It had quickly became apparent that Albus had been raised in one of those perfect, traditional little two parent households, where the rules were in place to protect the children, and where the punishments meted always fit the crimes.

Lucius had understood his problems far better than this so-called genius of a headmaster. Lucius’s had two parents who lived in the same house as one another, but that was where the fairy tale ended for him. The majority of Lucius’s memories about his old man involved his being secluded away in the back bedroom, as he “entertained” the local orphan children of the neighboring villages.

Severus, knowing far too well about that sort of thing, thanks to his own lecherous father, had been sickened by the description that Lucius had painted for him. Lucius had gone on to say that of his two parents, he actually despised his mother more for just standing by and not doing anything to stop it.

After all, there were some days that his father, who was usually drunk or jacked up on something—often muggle made, Lucius would sneer—that he had used Lucius for his games, not even remembering that the boy was his own son.

The man who was Lucius’s father had gone on to die surprisingly early, shortly after the Christmas holidays the year of Lucius’s fifth year—Severus’s fourth. Severus had never asked, but he had always strongly suspected that Lucius been involved in ending his old man’s life.

Severus shook his head, trying to wrench himself free from the troubling memories of his past, and focus once more on the issue at hand.

In the past, the probable runaways had been males and females alike who had gone to bed at night, only to have been reported as missing the next morning. Furthermore, most of the students who vanished were the types who had gotten themselves into trouble of some sort, usually related to grades, although that wasn’t always the case. Moreover, the missing students tended to have no external ties to the outside world, other than a family that had treated them like slop all of their lives in those damnable ‘less than optimal’ conditions.

Severus gritted his teeth, not allowing himself to be sucked down once more. What was done was done; there was no changing the sordid situations that he had been raised in.

The numbers of disappearing students as of late had increased by the slightest of margins. However, the students that were disappearing were almost all males. In addition, although some of the students that had gone missing were students whose grades had been fairly dismal, there were also a good many average ranked students, if not better. Likewise, not all of the recently missing students had families that didn’t give a damn whether they lived or died.

That was where the orchestrators of this scheme had really effed up, as far as he was concerned. It was likely that they had gotten greedy, but he had no way of proving that to anyone beyond just a gut instinct. He had been forced to rely heavily on his gut instincts when he was a spy, and therefore knew that his instincts rarely led him astray.

Earlier that Saturday, at lunchtime, he had been informed by Minerva that the youngest Weasley boy seemed to be missing from Gryffindor. The last time he had been seen in the tower was early that previous Thursday morning, when he had left with Potter and Granger to go to breakfast.

She was reluctant to declare him as missing however, given the family’s tendency towards overreacting to less than worrisome news.

“I certainly don’t envy you the position of informing Molly Weasley about anything,” he had said to her, honestly thankful to be free of that particular burden. Truthfully, many of the parents of the children in his house were not precisely pleasant to deal with either, but that was a consistency for them, no matter what the situation. However, Molly Weasley was a force of her own, and he knew better than to idly get her ire up.

“I trust that Potter made it back to the tower this morning after being released by Poppy?” He asked, knowing all too well that Minerva would likely see through his attempt at casually questioning her about the boy.

But perhaps the missing Weasley child was more worrisome than she had let on, for she only shot him a surprised glance before confirming that the fat lady had seen him earlier that morning.

“He also hasn’t left either,” she said, primly buttering a roll without managing to get butter on her fingers. He had never quite figured out how she did that, but decided that it was below him and far too preposterous a subject to ask her about.

And that had been that. He had not deigned to tell her that the Slytherin boy whom the Weasley boy had last been seen with was also missing. Zabini was a smart boy who regularly did just barely enough to get by, and his potions class was no exception. He had seen Zabini talking to Weasley more than a couple of times in the hallways, primarily around mealtimes, but had not yet investigated the situation.

While it was true that his Slytherins did frequently stick around each other, there were still a number of inter-house friendships, from first years to seventh. The number was probably lower than other houses, but since he had never really investigated the issue, he had no basis of fact to support that claim.

However, one thing that he did know was that those inter-house relationships rarely, if ever, existed between Slytherin and Gryffindor. In fact, the prefects and head boy and girl were under strict orders to inform him immediately if such a thing ever occurred. He had let them know that while such relationships weren’t banned, they weren’t particularly safe either—for either side. If such a thing were to exist, he did not want anyone, especially one of his snakes, to be accidentally caught in the crossfire.

His mind drifted back to the Potter boy. He hoped that the child was doing something productive with his time, even if he was just sleeping. The boy had clearly slept better in his presence, but better was largely a relative concept. The child had thrashed hard enough to wake him up more than once in those various nights that he had spent in his presence. While it was likely that the boy had nightmares about Lucius, it was also infinitely possible that his relatives had provided him with more than enough fodder to fill his subconscious for eons to come.

He had to admit that he was surprised that Minerva hadn’t seemed aware of Potter’s sleep difficulties. If Potter had been placed in his house, he would have seen to it that the boy had gotten someone, himself if necessary, to talk to. And if that had not worked, for whatever reason or reasons, then he would have made sure that the child was given a good supply of dreamless sleep, just to fight against the exhaustion that likely plagued the boy.

Severus was sorely tempted to make arrangements for Harry to sleep a few nights in his private rooms; if nothing else, then at least for the sake of observation to determine if there was some kind of pattern associated with the dreams. Given the boy’s innate connection to the Dark Lord, it was possible, if not likely, that his dreaming mind might hold some clue to the bastard’s movements. The incident the previous year with Quirrell and the Philosopher’s Stone had been a little too close to bear comfortably. In addition, he knew that Poppy and many of the other professors had felt the same. Dumbledore, however, had been less than helpful in doing anything about their concerns.

Of course, that was not a surprise, he thought bitterly, his mind falling back onto those damned less than optimal conditions once more.

He needed to go see Poppy. He was thinking in circles. He knew that she would set him straight. After all, she always had.

…

Poppy was not surprised to see Severus skulk into her domain once more. It seemed that as of late, he was incapable of leaving her for more than a few days without something going wrong. She didn’t mind the visits though. It was nice that he was finally opening up enough to trust another with his problems, even if it was the ‘dragon lady’ that he was choosing to speak with.

Given the proximity of certain other patients of hers, she decided to give him a cover for his being there, regardless of whether he wanted one or not. After all, he deserved it for his smacking her on the rump, a few days prior.

“Ah Severus,” she exclaimed brightly, as his eyes narrowed warily at her, obviously waiting for the punch line. “You’re just in time for your yearly physical.”

She watched in amusement as the tips of his ears turned pink, and he shot threatening glares around the room, silently threatening those who were there with death—or worse—should they make any remark about her statement.

“Follow me,” she said, turning gaily back to her office, leaving him walk murderously behind her.

When they were safely ensconced behind her door, he turned to her and glared for a moment before speaking.

“Why do you do that?” He complained to her, obviously annoyed.

“Ah, I think you left something out of your initial question there, dear.” She said mischievously.

He raised an eyebrow at her, but did not follow her down into her obvious trap.

“The question you should be asking is rather, ‘why do you do that to me?’” she said, grinning brightly at his scowling face.

He crossed his arms and frowned, before lightening up a bit by sticking his tongue out at her for a brief moment.

“There,” he said, nodding his head as though he had just made a significant point.

“There what?” She asked, still amused at his unusual antics.

“I think I’ve made my point.” He said, sniffing disdainfully in her direction.

They stared at each other a few moments more before she laughed in delight at him. He responded by smirking at her in wry amusement.

“Besides,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows at him, “how else can I be expected to ever see your bulging chest muscles?” She snorted at herself, completely undone by her own daring in asking such a ridiculous thing of such a somber young man.

“Honestly, if you think I have bulging chest muscles, then you need to get away from doing physicals with old professors,” he said, taking her comment in stride, surprisingly enough, given his usual temperament.

“I know what you’re thinking, young man,” she said, shaking a finger at him, “and let me tell you this—we are not even going to go there, let alone discuss it.” She said, trying to make him think she was more disturbed than amused by his statement.

“I believe that you were initially responsible for bringing the disconcerting subject up,” he said, raising his hands in innocence, and looking at her pointedly. “Although,” he said, continuing on calmly, “I doubt that there is very little ‘up’ involved for most of them,” he said, allowing a smirk to grace his features once more at the look of her utterly gobsmacked expression.

She quickly recovered her composure and slapped him on the knee for his impudence.

“I see that Mr. Potter has not been injured yet again in your presence,” she said, abruptly changing the subject away from the very alarming one that they had previously been speaking on.

Or around, rather, she thought, keeping her amusement firmly in check that time.

“As far as I am aware—not as of yet,” Severus answered her a bit stiffly.

“Oh, I thought that I might mention to you an idea I had towards keeping an eye on him without being around him constantly,” she said, keeping her voice purposely casual. She was interested in his reaction to her statement.

“Indeed.” He said, eyeing her curiously.

She noted with approval that he did not deny his interest in the boy’s welfare.

“I suppose that I might have done better to mention this to you earlier, but you slipped out without saying goodbye,” she trailed off, letting her annoyance with him creep a bit into her voice.

“You could have asked Harry,” he answered, shifting uncomfortably in his seat at her unspoken disapproval.

“Well, that’s something at least,” she said, only somewhat appeased. “I daresay that had you left without telling the boy, he would have been somewhat displeased with you.”

“I thought likewise,” he said in acquiescence, obviously trying to sound casual about the growing relationship that was developing between them.

“Must I warn you of the consequences of betraying him, especially now?” She said, dropping all amusement from her countenance and looking steadily at him as she waited for his reply.

“I am quite aware that they would be most dire, especially when one takes into account how often he has been betrayed by the adults in his life up until now.” He said, answering seriously, while staring at her with something akin to both determination and fury in his dark eyes.

He leaned forwards suddenly, breaking from his usually impeccable posture, and put his arms on his knees as he gazed intently at the smaller woman before him.

“I promised him that I would protect him from whoever might hurt him.” He informed her very softly; making her aware of the level of devotion he already had towards the boy.

“Then I don’t think that you’ll mind my taking his welfare concerns into my hands, as it were.” She said, looking intently into his eyes.

He straightened back up, looking more relaxed than he had prior to his admission.

“I must admit that I am interested in this scheme of yours,” he said, leaning back a bit and crossing his long legs in front of him casually.

“I thought as much,” she said, nodding knowingly at him.

And so, she showed him what she had finally decided to do. She had charmed a simple silver chain necklace to silently alert its wearer towards any extreme distress that was currently being experienced by the boy. She had done this by making a copy of Harry’s magical signature and binding it into the links themselves. Since she had recorded a copy of his unique magical code when the boy had been sleeping on Severus’s chest a couple of nights before, she felt that the magic in the charm might work best when worn by Severus.

“Do you have the necklace then?” He asked, obviously intrigued by the possibilities of such a device.

“Yes,” she said answered, unwrapping the charmed jewelry from where she had wound it onto her wrist and handing it to him.

He carefully linked its ends behind his neck and then looked at her. Almost immediately, his gaze unfocused as a strange look came over his face.

“Did you hear a high pitched sound while you were wearing the chain?” He asked, after a second or two more of disconcerting silence.

“No,” she said worriedly, peering questioningly into his face.

Suddenly his eyes went wide and he jumped up, cursing just under his breath, before striding quickly out of her office.

“I must make use of your floo, Poppy,” he said over his shoulder, before picking up speed in his stride. Once there, he quickly flung in the floo powder and was gone before she even had a chance to close her mouth.

…

Neville was worried about Harry. Secretly he wondered if Harry had told the entire story about what had happened there in the dark of the dungeons on that awful day. By the time the attack had occurred, he had become less than a veritable witness of anything, given his concussion, but he still thought that he had heard something else there in the silence following Harry’s brutal beating.

He thought he had heard anguished whimpering coming from the other boy before he had heard Ron and Zabini leave. But it wasn’t really the sort of thing he felt he could just casually ask his friend, especially given how wan Harry still looked following his recounting of the events in that classroom.

So he had left the other boy alone to sleep and recover as long as he could there in the safety of their room.

It was a quiet weekend day that was ultimately not to last. Neville had been watching the snow fall silently outside the common room window when he had first heard the sound. It was a scary sound as sounds go, but even more disturbing was the fact that he had recognized the sound. It was a low, harsh moan that had only begun building in volume and range the longer it continued on.

Given that Harry was the only one currently in their dorm room, Neville made the guess that it was probably coming from him. After all, he had been responsible for the sound when it had occurred before, at the beginning of the term.

Quickly, he mounted the steps and made it across the room in hopes of perhaps providing Harry with some much needed comfort—and failing that, at least hoping to be able to wake the boy up.

However, it was not to be.

As soon Neville got to Harry’s bed, Harry had started shrieking in what sounded like absolute terror. He was curled up into the fetal position at the head of his bed. Neville noticed that he must have forgotten to take off his shoes, although he had at least removed his glasses. One of his shoes was sitting by itself in the middle of his wrecked covered, while the other was still firmly attached to his foot.

In-between the sounds of the shrieking, Neville could hear Harry saying other things too, like ‘no’ and ‘please don’t.’

“Come on Harry,” he said, unsure of whether it would do any good to touch his friend now.

Harry shrieked again in response to whatever was going on in his nightmare. This time however, he didn’t leave it with that. He started beating his arms on the sturdy headboard, obviously trying to break out of something in the dream.

Neville had to do something before Harry beat himself bloody. The strikes were picking up in intensity and he had begun beating the back of his head against the headboard as well, almost perfectly in time with his arms.

“Harry!” The smaller boy yelled, grabbing his friend and trying to shake him out of it.

As it turned out, this was a bad idea.

Neville wasn’t sure exactly how Harry managed to do it, but shortly after touching him, the smaller boy found himself in midair, hurtling backwards from Harry’s bed, before being caught by the far wall with a hard THWAP that left him bruised and unconscious for the second time in as many days.

…

Severus jumped out of the floo in the Gryffindor dorm in a way reminiscent of the way that he had gone in on the infirmary side. Luckily there were only a few children present in the common room; otherwise he feared that it would have been more difficult to make it across the room as quickly as he did. He didn’t need to ask where Harry was; thanks to the necklace, it was more than clear to him that he was in his bed.

He quickly made it to the door, going inside hastily, fearing what he might find. As he strode in, his eyes fell on the rather familiar form of the Longbottom boy, unconscious on the floor, a deep purple welt swelling up on his brow. Noticing that the boy was in fact breathing, he did not step to check on the child, but instead headed further into the room, identifying that the source of the shrieking was indeed coming from Harry.

Closer inspection of the boy revealed lacerations and welts running up and down his arms that were obviously self-inflicted as Harry continued throwing himself upon the now bloodied headboard. Like Neville, Severus also made the clear assumption that the boy was trapped somehow within his dream, reduced to fighting wildly in both locales, desperate to remove himself.

Severus called his name several times, but got no response and decided to take the chance of touching the boy, even though the chances were high that he would end up like Neville. He only hoped that should that occur, he would at least have the wherewithal not to be unduly knocked out.

As soon as his fingertips touched the marred skin of the boy’s forearm, he knew that it was not going to end well, given the accompanying crackle of magic that he felt reverberate throughout his body.

This time, Harry’s wild magic reacted even more strongly, as it threw Harry up and away at the same time that it threw Severus backwards—hard—onto the floor.

He ignored the pain of the welts he could feel raising under his clothes as he pushed desperately up from the ground. Halfway towards standing, he heard the horrific telltale sounds of breaking glass and realized that the child had broken his way through the window and would be killed if he did not find a way to save him.

“NO!” He called out in anguish, hardly aware that he had done so. Then, using his arms to pull himself nearly all of the way over the headboard, he threw his head out the window, only to see a small figure falling frightfully fast towards the hard snow covered ground below.

He knew that there were wards protecting the students from this sort of thing, but it was quite obvious that Harry broken through them. His wand was already in his hand when he cast his spell towards the boy.

“ACCIO HARRY POTTER,” he yelled out the window, startling half a dozen birds from where they had been perched just below the windowsill.

He poured all of strength into the command, visually imagining what he wanted in his mind as his old charms instructor had suggested for particularly difficult situations. Not only was he fighting gravity, but he was fighting the unusual strength of a second year’s wild magic.

He could still feel Harry’s terror through the link he had with him via the necklace, which he was now fingering nervously as he waited for his spell to make some kind of obvious effect on the boy.

Then, through the cold blowing snow that had begun again, shortly after Harry’s fall, he saw a small figure zooming towards him at near breakneck speed. He quickly set a cushioning spell around him as the boy’s body came directly into view. Even with the spell, his nearly frozen body thumped into his chest hard enough to leave bruises on them both, as well as push Severus backwards onto the mattress behind him.

He didn’t care. The violently trembling child was now wrapped in his arms tightly, and he was damned if he was going to allow something like that to ever occur again.

As he carefully gathered the boy into his chest and stood up, he noticed the boy’s glasses sitting on his nightstand and pocketed them as well. The boy was staring up at him and he was once again reminded of the young primate being held tightly in its parents protective arms.

“I told you I would not allow you to be hurt, did I not?” He said softly to the small bundle in his arms.

Harry nodded his head, far more amazed by having an adult keep his word than having just nearly fallen to his death.

From outside the protective circle of his arms, he heard someone whisper, and he looked up in annoyance at having witnesses to his acting anything other than a snarky bastard.

“Well done sir,” Fred said in amazement to his actions in saving Harry’s life.

Severus realized that the entire contingent of school-bound Weasleys—minus Ron—was standing at the doorway with frightened, yet astounded looks on their faces.

He chose not to speak and instead walked through their throng with nary a glance at any of them. At the doorway, a thought struck him, and so he turned around and silently repaired the broken window. Then, looking at the oldest of the redheaded ones, he spoke.

“I trust that you will find it feasible to take young Mr. Longbottom down to the infirmary as soon as possible, yes?” He said, cocking an eyebrow at the lad.

“Yes sir.” Percy answered crisply to the professor whom had just miraculously saved Harry Potter’s life.

“Very well,” Severus said, nodding once at the lad, before turning and heading out the door.

He carried Harry down the steps and then went back through the Floo once more, being especially careful this time in direct accordance to the precious bundle that he was now carrying in his arms.