A Means of Survival – Chapter 08 – Harry’s Waking Nightmare Gets Invaded

Go and read Disclaimer/Warnings if you have not done so already.

Chapter 8 – Harry’s Waking Nightmare Get Invaded

Despite Madam Pomfrey’s use of the Dreamless Sleep potion on him, Harry still managed to wake on his own at only half past three the next morning. It was still dark, and his bed was still comfortable, but he no longer felt safe in his own mind. Furthermore, he knew that if he used their spell, Madam Pomfrey would know faster than he could say bedpan.

Oh well, it was nice while it lasted. He thought morosely to himself. He was reaching for his glasses when he heard a sound that made him freeze in his tracks. Slowly, he pulled his arm back under the covers and closed his eyes to just tiny slits.

He felt his body shaking almost imperceptibly under the covers and silently pleaded for help from someone—anyone.

“These are not the standard visiting hours,” Madam Pomfrey’s whispered voice shook with fury towards whomever she was speaking with.

“I’m here to see my son,” the man’s silky smooth voice replied. It was just as quiet as Pomfrey’s voice, but the tone implied great danger if she dared disobey.

Next to the bed across the way from Harry lay, a quiet figure stood and made its way over to the confrontation at the front of the room. Before passing free of the curtains that protected their beds from outside eyes, the dark figure looked directly at Harry and pressed a single long finger to its lips.

Shh, was the obvious silent order.

Harry creaked his neck up and down awkwardly, and then didn’t move again as he saw the figure step out into the pale light of what must have been Pomfrey’s lit wand.

It was Snape. The shock of this revelation went through him, straight down the tips of his toes, before Harry remembered how to breathe again.

“You’re not welcome here Lucius,” Snape said, speaking in a voice far colder and harder than any that Harry had ever heard him use with students, no matter how angry they had made him.

“Ah Severus,” Lucius’s voice said, freezing Harry’s insides painfully cold. “My old friend has joined us at last,” Lucius said, snorting with mirthless hate.

“What?” Snape said, obviously mocking the other man, “Did you not hear Madam Pomfrey asking you to leave? Getting hard of hearing in your old age?” He asked bitingly.

“You would do well to stay out of this Severus,” Lucius spoke, all fake tidings of politeness now gone from his cold tone. Harry felt the sound begin to wrap around his neck, like a boa constrictor might do to its prey. Logically he knew that there was nothing around his neck, but logic no longer seemed to matter; he wasn’t getting enough air and that was simply that.

He heard someone moving towards the back of the infirmary, and tried to do as Snape had instructed and stay silent, but short of holding his breath, there wasn’t much of any way to cut off the sound of his now labored breathing.

Lucius was standing much closer now; his voice was louder and more insistent.

Harry could feel Lucius’s hands on him, touching him everywhere. The fear of that day was sinking into the cold from the sound of Lucius’s voice in the center of his body; he felt as though it would drag him clean into the mattress itself. He covered his mouth with the blanket and breathed and quietly and as quickly as he could, more and more certain that the next breath would be his last.

“I am going to see my son, you reprehensible bag of potion slop!” Lucius said, throwing himself bodily into Snape.

From his vantage point, Harry could see very little, especially given that his vision was starting to be tinged with red and hazy black dots. However, upon hearing a couple of differently sounding loud grunts, it soon became apparent that each man had painfully struck the other in some manner or form.

And then suddenly he heard Pomfrey’s voice above the chaos of the room.

“Stupefy!” She said, very calmly and collectedly. Instantly, one of the men dropped to the floor and silence once again reigned in the room.

For a bit anyways.

That’s when Harry pulled his face out of the blankets and flung his head back against the pillow, gasping mightily.

“I’ve got him,” he heard what sounded like Snape’s voice say. “You bind Lucius. I sure your knitting skills are better than mine.”

Harry heard mismatched steps come up to his bedside and he realized that Snape was limping from whatever Lucius had hit him with.

Blurrily, he saw Snape raise his wand and mutter something above Harry, before stepping back and watching him calmly.

Harry felt the effects of whatever Snape had cast on him immediately, as he felt the weight lift from his chest to be replaced by what felt like endless shudders of fear and shame, mixed in great dollops together in his stomach.

He could breathe, but not without crying—which is what he was doing in great big wailing breaths. Goodness, he hadn’t cried like this in years, if then. Indeed, the more he tried to gather his control over the wild waves of emotions tearing through him, the worse they got. Frankly, he thought it was likely that he would soon shudder himself off the bed and into a massive whirlpool of insanity. He began beating his arms against the sides of the bed, not even noticing what he was doing, as he tried to regain his stability.

“Child, calm yourself!” Snape’s voice said piercingly into the wild mist of terror that was currently washing him away.

But he couldn’t obey his teacher, even if it was the teacher who had saved his life more than twice now.

“C-c-can’t!” He stuttered in wretched terror, feeling the connections with his body slipping away from the controls of his mind.

His teacher seemed to think on that for a moment before doing something completely out of character for the man. It was almost enough to send Harry into a different kind of shutdown, if it hadn’t been for the fact that it felt so very nice.

Snape leaned over his bed and actually picked him up! He put Harry’s head on his shoulder and put his hand behind it to steady him, before wrapping his other arm around Harry’s lower body. Harry’s legs were straddling Snape’s torso, and his hands were wrapped around his back and neck.

Harry shuddered onwards, even though Snape was holding him tightly against his stronger, warmer body.

“Oh Merlin,” Harry moaned softly against the shoulder that supported his head. He was still crying, but his sobs had begun to get back down under his control. Still, he was unable to quit the bone deep shudders that seemed intent on wracking his spine off-kilter.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I can’t make it stop. Please, I’m sorry,” he begged miserably, barely aware that he wasn’t speaking to his Uncle.

Snape said nothing to his pleas for mercy, but continued to hold him the way a parent might do with a distraught child.

Harry had begun to think that the man had not even heard him, when Snape said something nearly as surprising as his picking up of Harry had been in the first place.

“Sometimes,” his word rumbled into Harry’s body more emphatically than the actual word did inside his eardrum, “crying can be a good thing.”

…

Madam Pomfrey was not a happy healer.

She didn’t give a damn even if Lucius Malfoy was on the board of directors for Hogwarts. That simply did not give him the right to barge into her infirmary at 3:30 in the morning and demand for special treatment!

The aurors had just shown up and carted Lucius off for further questions that she doubted would get anyone anywhere. She just hoped that Severus’s well placed knee to his groin would serve as a least a little reminder of what Lucius could hope to encounter should he barge in here again unannounced.

In order to get the aurors, she had been forced to involve the headmaster. However, this latest event would no doubt just re-enforce his already blatant prejudice against the Slytherin house. She had practically been forced to bar the door after the exit of Lucius and his two escorts. Dumbledore had been most adamant about getting in there and poking his old nose into all the places it should not be!

She glanced over at her newest patient, praying for all that was holy that he had not been awakened as well. Ron Weasley had thankfully slipped into a deep sleep as soon as the calming drought had made it fully into his system. From what she could see, he was still unconscious and would likely stay that way for several more hours.

She strode quickly into the curtained off backside of her domain and was met with a most surprising sight.

Severus Snape was tenderly holding Potter against him, in his arms no less, and Potter was wrapped around him as well! The boy seemed to be fighting off some now obviously waning tremors—no doubt brought on by anxiety—from what he had just witnessed through the curtain.

She chanced a glance at the other boy on this of the curtains and was deeply relieved to find him every bit as unconscious as the Weasley boy.

She looked back at Severus and raised a questioning eyebrow. Severus looked at her and shook his head, looking back at the boy in his arms, indicating that Potter was still awake and listening.

“Severus Snape,” she exclaimed, acting as though she had just walked in there and seen them for the first time. Luckily she was extremely light on her feet and had a penchant for sneaking up on people anyways. Anyone who had spent any time at all in her infirmary would have known that little detail about her.

“What are you still doing on your feet?” She asked, pushing annoyance into her quiet voice.

“Poppy—,“ he began, somewhat pitifully in her mind, but she cut him off quickly. She chose to ignore the fact that Severus Snape, the dark man of the dungeons, had been caught holding Harry Potter—the vanguard of the light, against his chest in an effort to calm his tears!

Really, it was almost funny, a voice said naughtily in the back of her mind.

“Did you not hear me when I told you that you needed to stay off that knee?!” She said, rushing around to the side where he was holding the boy. She looked carefully at the boy in his arms and decided that those Muggles really were bad news. The boy was much too small for his age.

She pushed down the guard on the side of the bed closest to the two unlikely figures and gestured pointedly towards it.

As Severus stepped closer to the bed, the boy in his arms shook out of his lethargy and added his vote into the mix.

“No!” He said, gripping Snape with his arms and legs tighter in an effort to keep from being put down. Later, he would not be able to explain his actions to anyone, but then in that moment, he knew that he felt safe and given the rarity of that feeling, he was not about to give it up for anyone.

She snorted lightly as she caught sight of Severus’s surprised face following the boy’s proclamation of will.

“I want you both lying down,” she said, trying to sound testy, for Potter’s sake. She purposely ignored looking at Severus’s furious face and began directing him into the bed. When that didn’t work, she resorted to pure brute strength and started pushing. Really, as Albus was fond of pointing out, she really was a lot stronger than she looked.

Soon Severus Snape was lying on Harry Potter’s bed with said boy draped across him like some kind of gigantic octopus.

Poppy grinned at her potions master with a nefarious look on her face as she tucked them both in and wished them good night. She stopped short of kissing them on their foreheads, but the spring in her step was infinitely obvious as she moved away from the bed. Oh she was far more amused than she could remember being in some time.

Likewise, she knew full and well that she would pay for her moment of glee, but really, it was very much worth it.

…

Severus Snape felt out of place.

In addition, once he got his hands on Poppy, she was going to find herself several pieces out of place. He would have growled, but it would have disturbed the warm, and now stationary, lump on his chest.

The boy was no longer wrapped entirely around him, but instead had been arranged by Poppy so that he was merely all over him. He threaded his fingers through the boy’s soft hair and watched in amusement as the child leaned unconsciously into his touch.

He was glad that Poppy had rescued him from standing on a knee that was no doubt swelling from his putting his weight—and the child’s weight, what little there was of it—on top of the vicious kick he had received there thanks to Lucius earlier that night.

He knew why Lucius had likely not attacked with his wand first. If he had, it would have set off the wards, and then the entire castle would have been on top of him within minutes.

Severus knew that Lucius’s strategy had not been implemented out of any fear for his son being hurt in the fight. Lucius held himself first and all others could be damned. It was something that he himself had learned the hard way. It was also one of the reasons that they had fallen out as friends, but not the only one, to be sure.

He looked back at the small body he was still holding onto. He and Poppy really needed to start slipping the boy some nutritive potions in his midday meal. The boy was far too small and skinny, given his age and country of residence.

He thought about the boy in comparison to the Granger girl. Although they had been through similar situations, they had responded in different ways.

Tonight, for instance, he pondered to himself. The boy had been in obvious distress, even after he had ended the hyperventilating attack, but he hadn’t asked for help. The boy hadn’t even really looked at him, even though he was standing right next to his bed. He knew now that the boy’s actions weren’t some kind of misplaced pompous bravado put up for his professor’s sake. The boy didn’t know how to ask for help.

Or maybe he knew how useless the request would be.

He felt the boy shudder once more in his sleep, making him wonder if the boy had somehow innately reacted to his thoughts.

He pushed past that thought with a slight grimace and thought back to how he differed in comparison with Granger. Granger had come to him; she had been openly angry with him to his face. In contrast, the boy had worried himself into a concussion, and then into a longer stay in the infirmary once Poppy had gotten a look at his body.

And then there was the Weasley boy.

That was an entirely separate bottle of lacewing flies.

Whatever state he had worked himself into was reversible at some level, since he had responded to the double strength calming potion.

He responded by sinking into the land of the unconscious, he thought in slight annoyance, looking back down at the Potter child.

He gradually discovered that his annoyance for the youngest Weasley boy was slowly evaporating, the longer he looked down at the peaceful face of the black haired child in front of him.

A Means of Survival – Chapter 09 – Fully Turning The World Upside Down