A Means of Survival – Chapter 23 – Backtracking 24 Hours (ish)

Watch out. Here comes a long one.

Chapter 23 – Backtracking 24 hours (ish)

Severus Snape had awoken early that Sunday morning with a vague plan in place for the day. Stealthily he had put his shoes on—not the easiest task when trying not to wake up the small twelve year old boy who is still asleep in your arms—and crept out of the infirmary before the morning light had ever touched the windows.

He was a little over twenty meters down the hallway before he heard her tiny footsteps rushing to catch up with him. Thanks to the still sleeping boy in his arms, he knew that she would not screech at him to stop. She would have to physically catch up with him to berate him for leaving, or sneaking out rather, of the infirmary on his own.

Well, I’m not on my own, am I Harry? He thought to himself as he looked at the white faced boy still in his arms. He increased his stride as much as he dared to without having to worry too much about disturbing the boy’s sleep.

He could hear the tiny footsteps pick up speed in response to his change in stride. He sighed, knowing that she would catch up with him sooner rather than later, but was unwilling to give in to her so easily.

It was part of the fun, after all, the hysterically exhausted voice said in his mind before going off to find a quiet corner to laugh to itself in.

He really needed to sleep for twelve hours or so in his own bed, which just so happened to be in his own quarters.

He didn’t want to look behind him, because he knew that he would be faced with the image of a tiny red faced woman chasing him down the corridors of Hogwarts at way too freaking early in the morning.

He listened carefully to the way her footsteps were ringing against the stone hallways, and decided that yes, she was going to catch up to him somewhere around the main entrance of the castle.

Once, as a teenager, he had tried taking random passageways and hiding out in unused classrooms in his effort to throw her off his trail. By the time he had figured it would be safe to come out again, she had been standing directly outside the door of the room he had been in.

He still didn’t know how she did it, and she wouldn’t tell him either. As a spy, and a man who had possessed an unusually inquisitive mind from birth, the fact that he couldn’t figure out the mystery really irritated the hell out of him.

She caught up to him just past the Great Hall, at the bottom of the first flight of stairs that led down to the dungeons. He half expected her to tackle him, which she actually had done before, if not for Harry’s presence.

“SEVERUS.” She whispered, clearly annoyed at his attempt towards leaving without her express permission.

Likely she’s pissed at you for having to chase you throughout half the castle as well, the still giggling voice whispered in his ear.

“Yes Poppy?” He asked in an inquiring tone, turning to look at her curiously as though he had no idea that she had been chasing him for the past ten minutes.

“Don’t even try it,” she said, narrowing her eyes vehemently at him.

He was a bit amused at the growl that he had heard in her voice. He started walking down the hall again, trying to make it look like a meandering stroll.

He got an entire classroom length down the hall before she accidentally stomped on his foot.

“Ow?” He said, trying to make his face seem intimidating as he looked down at her. Students were constantly terrified of him. Filius was often terrified of him as well. His former students would cross over to the other side of the street rather than walk down the sidewalk beside him. Why couldn’t she be the same way?

“If you will excuse me Poppy, I need to put a child down before my arms fall off or he wakes up, whichever occurs first,” he said, raising an eyebrow.

“If you had stayed put in your bed, then that wouldn’t be a difficulty, now would it?” She was whispering to him, but he could still hear the screech clearly coming through regardless.

“I will stay put in my bed, if you would be so kind as to allow me to do so.” He said smartly, turning and trying to head back down once more. To his very extreme surprise, she did not stop him, but walked beside him in stern chiseled silence instead.

They made it down another set of stairs before he gave in to the need to speak to her.

“Do tell me that you aren’t just following me—or us rather,” he said, looking carefully down at the small head on his shoulder, “because you’re trying to avoid another infamously difficult physical with Albus Dumbledore?”

He looked down to see if she would respond to his ridiculous premise.

She glared at him for a moment before replying.

“Severus, I would have to agree to let him back into the infirmary in order to give him a physical.” She said cryptically.

“And we all know how steadfast you are about standing by your decisions, don’t we Harry?” he said, nodding seriously while hearing his inner persona giggle heartily. He looked down at the boy in quietly veiled surprise at suddenly feeling him nod his head in agreement to Severus’s question. The boy’s eyes were still closed, but Severus was almost positive that the boy was grinning against his shoulder.

Perhaps Poppy didn’t notice, he thought, knowing that it was more likely that he might actually sneak successfully out of the infirmary someday.

He looked up and noticed with no small amount of relief that they had made it to his home turf. This hallway was almost like a front lawn for him. The students who dared come here with naughty ideas in mind often were met with less than pleasant consequences.

“So Poppy,” he said, deciding to break the once again formidable silence with yet another inane question.

Merlin he needed sleep.

“Have you ever pulled Albus off of active duty? Can you even do that?” He asked her, actually somewhat curious in spite of himself.

“Yes I have that ability.” She said, grinning her planning smile up at him.

“Uh oh,” he heard Harry say very faintly from where his mouth was pressed against his shoulder.

Uh oh indeed, he thought to himself.

“And yes, I have used it before.”

They had made it to his rooms. He touched the wall with his hand, before tapping his wand three times on one of the stones in front of him, then three more times on another, followed by nine short taps on a stone directly in front of his eyes.

Abruptly a doorway appeared in the stones and he stepped partially inside.

“Oh by the way Severus,” Poppy said, placing a small hand on his arm.

He looked down at her darkly, pensively waiting for her punishment.

“I’m putting you on house arrest until Wednesday, unless some kind of emergency should arise in which your presence is directly needed.” She said, smiling sweetly up at him.

He glared down at her, displeased at her decision.

“Off you get!” She said, flinging a kick at his knee which he avoided only by jumping backwards. Behind him, the door closed with an unusually loud sounding thump. He snarled at it as he realized that she had charmed it shut. She was serious about not letting them leave his quarters.

Suddenly he realized that there were quiet giggles coming from the boy in his almost numb arms.

Maybe he could learn how to work out in his sleep.

Hmm.

“All right, quit pretending.” He said huffily, walking down the hallway towards where his bedroom was.

The boy erupted with painfully high pitched giggles that didn’t die down until Severus was sitting on his bed, attempting to wrestle one handed with his shoes.

“I trust that you are quite done now with that infernal racket?” He said towards the small lump of boy that was still nestled firmly into the crook of his shoulder.

The head of the small lump of boy nodded, but he could still the smile stretched across the boy’s still far too white face.

Small Lump Of Boy. SLOB, he thought to himself nonsensically. Makes sense, the persona said quietly in response.

“All right SLOB,” he said, giving into the insanity for a while. “Will you be okay if I put you down for a moment while I change into sleep clothing?”

“Slob? I’m not a slob,” the boy argued in a muffled voice from where he still had his face pressed against Severus.

“That remains to be seen, does it not? Regardless, I was not calling you a slob. I called you SLOB- it’s an acronym for ‘Small Lump Of Boy,’” he said with mild amusement, especially after feeling the boy’s awkward expression being pressed against his arm at hearing the explanation.

“Back to the original question, SLOB,” he said, enjoying the boy’s annoyance at his nickname for him.

“Okay,” Harry answered quietly, still not moving his face away from where it was pressed.

Severus really wanted to ask him how he was actually managing to continue breathing from that position, but decided that he was too strung out to handle the resulting discussion.

Carefully, he pulled—although it felt more like he was having to literally peel—the boy off of the side of his chest and placed him on the bed. Instantly the boy pressed his face against the bedcover, before curling up in his SLOB position once more.

Curious and curiouser, he mused silently before quickly taking off his robes and underclothes. He had gotten his pajamas on before realizing that his bladder was demanding immediate attention.

“SLOB,” he said while running a hand over his face in annoyance that he had to warn the boy about going to the bathroom.

“Sir?” The boy asked, his voice still muffled.

Severus found that he could not keep himself from rolling his eyes at the entirely too bizarre situation he had somehow found himself in the midst of.

“I’m going to step into the room just next door for a moment to take care of some—ah—personal business.” He said, feeling like a complete and total ass.

He moved around the bed without waiting for a response, but noted with peculiar amusement that the boy had started scooting across the top of the bedcover as soon as he was more than two meters away from him. The child hadn’t even looked up. It was peculiar, to say the least.

He went into the bathroom and shut the door behind him with a resounding thump to prove his independence. Still, he went about his business quickly, telling himself that he feared what might happen to his rooms should he leave the child alone for too long.

Upon opening the door, he quite nearly fell over the boy. Apparently the boy had managed to make his way over to the doorway while Severus was in the bathroom and was now in his familiar position, but at his feet instead.

“There is another bathroom on the other side of my quarters, should you ever need it while this one is occupied,” he said, trying not to make the boy think he was angry at him for his obvious clinginess.

“Oh,” said the muffled voice of his SLOB.

“Would you like to use the bathroom?” He asked, thinking that Poppy was likely laughing to herself at his expense.

“That would be nice,” the muffled voice said from the floor.

He stepped over the boy and then stared at him when the child did not move.

“Trust me, neither of us are going anywhere until Wednesday, when Poppy releases us.” He said in irritation from her meddling.

The boy didn’t speak.

Severus leaned over the boy and picked him up, knowing that he was going to regret this soon enough. He was also forced to admit to himself that he had missed the presence of the small warm body pressed up against his side while he was in the bathroom.

“Okay,” he said as he stood in front of the toilet with his arms around his SLOB.

“If I leave you here and shut the door, can you go on your own?”

The boy didn’t answer. Severus took that to mean no.

“If I leave you here and stand on the other side of this room with my back turned, can you go on your own?”

“Okay,” replied the muffled voice.

Severus set the boy down with a firm warning not to go shoving his face against the toilet base, before stepping away and turning around with his arms crossed over his chest, not believing himself.

It took a minute, but then he thankfully heard the blessed sounds of urination occurring from behind him. He had never been so thankful to hear those sounds in his life.

After an incredible length of time, especially given the size of the child in question, he finally heard the sound of pants being readjusted and the flushing of the toilet.

He turned around to see that the boy had already resumed his SLOB position on the floor. Severus was immensely thankful to see that the child had taken his warning to heart and seemed to be pressing his face into his arms instead.

“I think we’ll worry about the cleansing of your teeth another time.” He said, leaning over and picking his familiar SLOB.

“Okay,” came the familiar muffled reply.

Severus was starting to think that muffled speech should be considered another language. It worried him to no end that he was starting to get used to the sound.

Before putting them both down, he pulled out his wand and spelled the boy’s hands and teeth clean.

The boy growled into his shoulder.

In turn, he told him that the sound wasn’t nearly as intimidating when it came from a muffled SLOB.

The boy replied by poking him in the neck, of all places.

He responded by growling.

The boy made a loud squeak and squeezed himself even farther against Severus’s body.

“I’m starting to get the feeling that if I let go of you, you won’t move any.” Severus said dryly in the direction of the boy’s head.

“Have to try harder than that to get rid of me.” The boy said, speaking his longest sentence yet.

Intriguing, he thought.

He was standing in-between the doorway of the bathroom and the bed. His feet were beginning to get cold.

“Are you tired?” Severus asked.

The boy mumbled in the affirmative.

Severus raised an eyebrow at the sorry excuse for speech, but decided to bring the issue up later.

“Good, because I’m going to bed,” he said, pulling the soft blue-green bedcover and accompanying thinner blankets back from the headboard. He noted that he was getting fairly adept at doing tasks with one arm. He wondered if he should be bothered by that fact.

Then he glanced at the headboard and the image of the boy’s headboard covered with pieces of the child’s skin and bright with his blood entered his mind unbidden.

“There are no windows down here,” he said, unsure of whether he was assuring himself or the SLOB.

The boy said nothing, but nodded knowingly against his shoulder.

He climbed into the bed, spelling off the lights as he went. He felt his SLOB relax a tiny bit as he moved around in an effort to get comfortable. They lay there quietly in the darkness for a bit, getting used to each other in the different, larger bed. Severus, for his part, got used to having full circulation in his arms again.

Surprisingly, Harry was the one to break the silence.

“Sir?” He heard a timid voice say.

“Yes Harry?” He answered.

“Were you telling the truth when you said you couldn’t leave until Wednesday?” The child who was halfway on his chest asked him in only a semi-muffled voice this time.

Ah, reassurances, he thought, with a resigned feeling in his heart.

“Yes Harry.” He responded, answering the boy’s direct question, yet feeling the need to continue onto discussing the unasked, yet clearly apparent, fear.

“I am not planning on going anywhere without informing you otherwise.” He said; rubbing circles into the boy’s back until he felt the tense muscles begin relaxing themselves under his very fingertips.

“Thank you,” the boy whispered to him sleepily.

“I hope that you will be kind enough to extend me the same courtesy,” he replied, needing to say the words before the boy fell completely asleep.

“Yes sir,” the boy said, yawning widely against his chest.

The man who was Severus Snape, the snarky potions master of Hogwarts, who also happened to be an ex-Death Eater and generally just an all-around bastard of a human being, leaned down and kissed the boy lightly on the top of his head shortly before the child fell completely asleep. His fingers lightly and slowly stroked the hair on the boy’s head as he slept, feeling him relax further into the man’s calm touch as he did so.

“Good night Harry,” he whispered softly before closing his eyes as well.

…

Neville was stiff and sore still when he was released from the infirmary, but he didn’t argue with the stern woman’s decision. She released him just in time for Herbology and he was glad to be able to go.

He realized shortly that class simply was not the same without Ron or Harry there to crack jokes or simply complain good naturedly about the class itself. He found himself missing them, even though he still was able to enjoy himself in the class.

Afterwards, he asked Dean whether or not anyone had been found to teach their Defense class, only to find out that Dean didn’t know if they were even looking for anyone, given the fact that there was less than a week remaining before the Christmas holidays. Looking or not, it didn’t matter, since there wasn’t anyone to cover the class other than Dumbledore, and no one had even said anything about that possibility except Peeves.

He had tried to talk to Hermione about it after the class, but she had told him point blankly that she didn’t know anything and she wished to goodness people would quit asking her as though she were some kind of damn guru.

“But Hermione!” He had gasped, running after her against the freezing wind. She had set off from him in a fast stride towards the castle obviously angry with the entire situation.

Just outside the castle, next to the extremely cold masonry of the steps leading up to the Great Hall, she stopped and turned towards him, startling him so much that he had fallen flat on his backside in a great big pile of hard packed snow. It hadn’t done much to help his overall physical wellbeing.

“What?” She asked, looking at him in rare exasperation.

“I just wanted to know if you’d heard anything more about what might have happened with Ron.” He said quietly, in a voice that was barely audible over the wind.

“No,” she said, looking at something past him with very dark eyes. “But I did hear that his parents came in yesterday, sometime after you were released from the hospital.” She said, looking at him with a piteous expression.

Neville rather despised pity. He got it enough from well-meaning folk to the point that it was almost enough to turn his stomach at times, but now, to get it from someone he considered a friend, he almost became angry enough to kick out at her.

“Do you need help standing up?” She asked him, not really looking at him.

“No, I’ve got it.” He said, really trying not to be angry with her. He had to turn over in order to get his footing on the icy ground, but finally he got it.

He turned around and saw her still standing there. It surprised him, considering how out of sorts she seemed lately.

“I hate being me sometimes,” she said softly before accompanying him up the stairs and inside.

He looked at her shocked, but not uncomprehendingly. There had been many times in his life that he had felt the same way, but he didn’t think that someone as smart and talented as Hermione would ever feel the need to say the same thing.

He didn’t know what to say, so he kept his mouth shut. He had finally learned that it was almost always safer to just to be quiet, rather than say something and get slapped for it. He had noticed that girls did a lot of slapping when they became angry.

“Sometimes I wonder if the world would actually notice if I disappeared as well,” she said, leaning down and giving him a small kiss on the cheek. She walked off for real that time as he stood in wonder, not even daring to touch the spot on his face where her lips had been.

…

Minerva looked out at her slightly smaller second year Gryffindor class with pained eyes. She had gotten a visit from Molly and Arthur the day before that had not gone nearly as well as she had hoped. Molly had been nearly grey from worry and Arthur had been reduced to blustering endlessly in her face about her apparent communication inability. She was fairly positive that they didn’t mean the cruel things that they had said about the school and her leadership style. Furthermore, she was fairly certain that they would apologize as soon as Ron was safe and sound, but she was quite sure that if his absence dragged out too much longer, higher parties would soon be involved with less than desirable outcomes emerging as a result. Given that she quite liked her job and position in life, she hoped for her sake as well as theirs, that Ron was found sooner, rather than later.

After they had finally left, she had gone looking for Severus once more, only this time choosing to start with Poppy first. Poppy had been surprisingly helpful, and more than a little gleeful in dispersing the information.

Apparently, she had put him on house arrest with the hopes that he would sleep most of the time, given his recent injuries and stresses involved in the higher than average rate of having to save Mr. Potter from imminent demise.

As for Mr. Potter, she had informed Minerva in that same excited voice, he was there with Severus.

At hearing those words, Minerva had been less than kind in giving her opinion on the dangers therein, but Poppy had set her straight rather harshly by explaining more about the situation which had occurred in the tower.

“Harry only trusts Severus.” Poppy had told her in no uncertain terms.

Truly, it was a situation and a sentence that she had not been expecting to ever encounter. Severus was possibly the coldest bastard she had ever met, but after her talk with Poppy, she had been forced to reexamine her opinion of the man.

After all, Albus had been the one to willingly allow the child to be sent home year after year, fully knowing what the boy faced in that household. He had already done that to Harry once. Once was enough, in her opinion. Actually, if she could have gotten away with it, she would have never allowed the boy to be placed there at all. It wasn’t right to treat a child in such a despicable manner.

And now, looking out at her classroom and seeing those two empty seats instead of the bright eyes of the two friends, it really struck a new kind of chord in her heart.

But she had pulled herself together and determinedly pushed on through the class period. It would have been easier though if the Granger girl hadn’t been testing every inch of her patience the entire time. She knew that it was hurting the girl to be missing her two best friends—one lost and one seemingly misplaced—but that did not give her the right to rebel openly against her lessons.

All of that suddenly went out of her mind though as the floo in the classroom abruptly howled to life. She looked up at it, the worry evident across her face as she wondered at its meaning. Students were not allowed to use the floo, and generally the professors only used it times of extreme need. For all she knew, Voldemort could be about to walk through.

When it belched out its traveler, she knew instantly that he figure was not any of the professors there. He was too small for most of them, but was significantly larger than Filius, at least in height.

And then her mind seemed to blank out as the figure straggled across the threshold and into the light. All she could hear was a great roaring in her ears, as she nearly became completely overcome with shock at the grisly sight of what apparently was left of Ron Weasley.

“Thank Merlin you’re alive,” her mouth said without consulting with her brain. It didn’t seem to matter since he seemed to be completely unaware of nearly everything around him.

His hair was matted down with dirt and other substances that she didn’t want to peer too closely at, nor think too much about. He was dressed only in a pair of excessively loose pants, merely reinforcing her opinion that he looked far too gaunt to remain upright as he dragged one bloodied foot after another across the room. His torso was covered in more openly bleeding wounds than real skin, and what skin was there was literally grey with obvious fatigue. In addition, his fingers dripped blood haphazardly around him as he lurched along.

His eyes searched the room repeatedly in almost an aimless fashion, greatly reminding her of the motion of Moody’s magical eye. They passed by her face at one dreadful point, and she found herself having to look away from the horrible dead fish look that stared out at her from that greenish white face.

Minerva, who had seen a great many things in her time, had never seen anything nearly as gruesome as this hollow excuse for a boy.

It didn’t seem possible that the situation could increase in horridness, but she seemed permanently fated to be wrong about impossible concepts as he finally stopped his imprecise motion to look directly into the suddenly milk white face of one Hermione Granger.

He stared at her for what felt like an interminable time to everyone in the room.

It was during this pregnant silence that Minerva managed to pull herself together enough to cast a Patronus to Poppy in the infirmary. All she said in her short message was: “My class needs your quiet help. Do not bring Weasleys.”

She had barely gotten the message sent when the pale shadow of a boy finally began speaking.

“I need to find Hermione. Can you help me find her?” She heard him croak out roughly to the girl he was seeking. Apparently the scene was too much for the Granger girl as she responded by passing out cold and falling roughly to the floor.

Minerva continued to stare at what was left of Ron Weasley as he continued looking at unconscious girl before him on the floor.

She saw him begin to sway once more and decided to stand up and try to move closer to him, lest he fall and break what was left of his body.

To her left, the door unexpectedly began opening, seemingly of its own accord, until the quiet figure of Poppy Pomfrey slipped delicately into the room.

The boy did not turn to look at her, but seemed instead to wilt before Minerva’s eyes, as he seemed to lose all sense of his previous focus. To her class she raised a single finger to her lips, indicating that they needed to remain quiet until they had a handle over what was going on. They had fallen completely still at the delicate entrance of Poppy, but she needed to make sure that they continued to stay that way.

Unfortunately, the boy seemed to have other plans.

He no longer seemed to be aware of anyone else around him as he suddenly began shrieking in a voice that had more similarities to the cry of a banshee than the boy he should have been.

Unexpectedly, he darted out, moving much faster than should have been possible for him, considering the extent of his injuries. She saw right away that he was moving towards the floo, with possibly the idea of going back the way he had come. And he might have made it, except for the fact that the floo powder that was used for the classrooms was kept in a non-standard locale for the purpose of discouraging mischief.

He shrieked upon discovering he had been thwarted, still sounding far less like a human and more like a rabid creature of the night this time. As he turned, she saw something that she had not seen upon his initial appearance in the room.

In his hand he held a wand, and it was here that she looked at Poppy in consternation regarding his rapidly deteriorating state of mind. Against all odds, somehow the boy had managed to make it to the classroom of Hermione Granger. She looked at the boy as he was now; completely wild and unable to even string two syllables together. It seemed highly unlikely that he would be able to use the wand in the traditional manner of his school lessons, but nothing was likely about his case, so it was better to err on the safe side than not.

“Minerva,” Poppy said speaking in an excessively calm voice, considering the situation. “Accio and I’ll cushion,” she said tersely.

Minerva nodded in understanding before quickly following her plan.

“Accio wand!” She said, casting the spell towards the wand in Ron’s bloodied hand. He was no match for her spell, regardless of whatever altered state he currently existed in. The wand was soon in her possession.

Ron Weasley, however, did not fall as Poppy had predicted but now seemed to be running—albeit rather drunkenly—towards her, seemingly intent on doing her harm. She quickly thought through her options even as Poppy made her move, casting the full body bind on him, followed shortly by mobilicorpus.

And yet, he still continued to howl even through his now clenched teeth. This time it reminded her of the sound of a desperately wounded animal facing a much larger predator. It was a sound that chilled her straight through to her bones, and she knew with some trepidation that it would be a sound that would likely stay with her for many nights—if not years—to come.