Adventures in Babysitting So, tonight I was babysitting for a four-year-old. This involved playing for a long time in his grandmother's office (she is a child psychologist, so she has TONS of toys in her office).

He pulled toys out as he went, so I didn't immediately draw the connection. First there was a castle. Okay... Then there was a person with a wand, who had pink hair but was proclaimed the prince (I went with it--he's the kid, he gets the choice). Later there was a train, and a train station. The train was the "Wonderland Express". The castle had a W on it, I realized later.

Then, the other people started coming out. First, a very large man, both much taller and much wider than the other toys. Hagrid, I thought, but then figured I must be mistaken.

Then a wizard. And a cauldron. Hmm, interesting. Then two more characters with wands. One of them had red hair. And then, brooms, too.

That's right. It was a Harry Potter knockoff. "Hogwarts" became "Wonderland" but all the pieces were there. (Okay, there was no nasty looking Potions professor. Darn, what a loss.)

The kicker though? The pink haired "prince" was Hermione (oops!) and "Harry Potter" had--get this--PURPLE hair!

Hehehe... that was my Harry Potter adventure in babysitting. :-D  ¶ 7:47 PM 0 comments

  The Real Malfoy A little ditty I wrote because I was feeling stuck on Lies.

Summary: Jarod (of Pretender fame) meets someone who does a different kind of "Pretending". Alternately, Tonks runs into an overly curious genius.

“I’m not who I seem to be,” the suave, blonde-haired man insisted in a female voice with a distinctively British accent.

“Well, that much is obvious,” Jarod replied with a grin and a raised eyebrow, steepling his fingers in front of him. “But that raises many questions, such as: Who are you? Why do you look like the person that we have been tracking? And what happened the real Mr. Malfoy?”

“I don’t *know* what happened to the real Malfoy. I’ve been impersonating him to try to find him, but getting captured was not in the plans. Now, if you could just give me a piece of parchment and let me write down this tellyfone number—“

There was something strangely awkward about the way she said “telephone,” as though she weren’t really accustomed to saying the word or wasn’t even certain how it *should* be said. He tilted his head and tried to get into his/her mind, figuratively speaking. S/he averted his/her eyes quickly. Interesting.

“How long are you going to keep me here?” she asked in that strident tone. He shrugged.

“Until you give us a little more information, I imagine. How do we know you’re not the real Malfoy, disguising your voice somehow? You have to admit that it’s just as likely as that you’re some strange woman who somehow has the ability to disguise herself as an exact replica and claims to be some kind of law enforcement official but won’t give her affiliation.”

Malfoy’s face scowled. “Haven’t you ever heard of secrets? It would break several international treaties for me to explain.. which is why if you’ll just give me a piece of parchment..” S/he was still refusing to meet Jarod’s eyes, however.

“It would break international treaties to tell a policeman your secret?” Jarod confirmed, a slightly ironic smile twitching at his lips. She nodded.

He leaned forward across the table and said in a low voice, “Good, because I’m not a policeman.”

Malfoy scowled. “Are those whatchamacallits.. cammeeras.. are they on right now?”

Jarod tilted his head. There, again, was that strange lack of knowledge about technology. “No…” he replied after a moment of silence.

“Good, then let’s stop beating around the bush. What do you mean when you say you’re not a policeman?”

Jarod leaned in. “Well, I’m a policeman right now, but not legally. I’m a Pretender; a genius with the ability to become anyone they want to be. Right now, I’m Pretending to be a police officer in order to track down Malfoy—whose visage you so suspiciously wear at the moment. Now it’s your turn: if you’re not Malfoy, who are you, and how do you look so much like him with out any perceptible cosmetics or disguises?”

“Fine. It’s your Obliviation.” She closed her eyes for a moment and suddenly Jarod couldn’t believe his eyes—she was blending into another person. He reached forward to feel her face immediately, ignoring any personal space issues in an urgent need to prove that what he had seen was not some trick.

“How’d you do it?” he breathed. She looked rather uncomfortable at the sudden proximity, and had scooted her chair back slightly.

“Magic. I take it you’ve never met a Metamorphmagus, before?”

He shook his head. “Can you teach me?” he pleaded almost immediately.

She snorted, looking a little more comfortable now that he wasn’t showing any signs of getting near her again. “You wish—you and many others. It’s a talent. You’re born with it or you’re not.” She paused. “What did you mean, you can ‘become’ anyone you want to be?”

“It’s nothing like what you can do, physically. It’s a mental ability—I can put myself in anyone else’s shoes, and think what they are thinking, feel what they are feeling. For instance, not only are you British, but you come from a society that is very insular—probably magical. You don’t use telephones or cameras or probably any other ‘modern’ technology; you even use unusual methods of communication, I would guess.”

“Not bad for a Muggle. It’s too bad you’re going to have to be Obliviated.”

“There’s that word again. What does it mean?”

“It means I can tell you all I want, because you’re not going to remember any of this,” she said, almost sadly.

“Not going to remember..?” he replied, looking nervous all of a sudden. He began to back away from her, the prisoner, and only realized that someone was behind him when he heard the voice say, “Obliviate.”

“So, was it Malfoy, or no?” Jarod’s colleague asked. Jarod shook his head.

“No. Just a transvestite with a strange disguise.”

“Oh. How come you get all the interesting cases?”

  ¶ 9:57 PM 0 comments

  Yay! Just got this in my e-mail...

"We of S.C.H.A.L. are writing to let you know that your story 'Stuck on Parseltongue' has been reviewed and recommended at The Snape Chocolate Harry Addiction League. S.C.H.A.L. is a Live Journal focusing on fan fiction containing any kind of relationship between Harry Potter and Severus Snape - romantic, platonic or familial. That and chocolate, preferably both at the same time! If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to reply to this email, or leave a comment on our review of your story.

Yours,
Maryx, Nessime & Morrighan"

That made my day! :-D (Now I just need to leverage it to get some good writing done, and I'll be set!)  ¶ 10:22 AM 0 comments

  Another Great Day--Now Just a Few More... Three word sprints (that's ten minutes, writing as fast as I can) and I wrote 2051 words! :-D That is *not bad at all* in my opinion. Now, I am trying to do at least four word sprints a day, but I am also trying to just get over 2K, so I'll take the three for today. I got a late start because of Spades tournament (oops) and chatting with my brother over Skype for the first time.. and now I'm going to need sleep, since there was no nap in my day and this is about as late as I've been up all week. I wish I knew why I am so tired!

4,827 / 40,000 (12.0%)

  ¶ 8:16 PM 0 comments

  I'm so proud of me! :-D Okay, am I allowed to be proud? I finished 2341 words today! :-D If I can keep on this speed, I'll be done in no time (or less than I had any right to expect, at least). :-)

I will now sleep "the sleep of the accomplished." I even learned some Hebrew and won a Spades tournament today!

2,776 / 40,000 (6.0%)

Now to see about getting a job.. :-/  ¶ 7:58 PM 0 comments

  Progress So.. I'm trying to finish Lies by doomsday (I mean, er, the HBP release date). Maybe crazy. Probably so, considering I seem to be sick and all I seem capable of is sleeping. Hence the depressingly low word meter below. However, I have hope that I will be able to do it. I have to have hope.

Must.. have.. hope.. *falls asleep* Zzzz...

435 / 40,000 (1.0%)

  ¶ 8:00 PM 0 comments

  Reparo, Pt 2b: Confundo Had to break Confundo into two posts for easier reading.

Prev | Home

Reparo, Part 2b: Confundo

The wee hours of the night were always the worst when one was trying to stay awake. Not that Harry was trying to stay awake, but since he was being forced to do so, it felt similar. He stared for hours at the grounds of the castle, trying to occupy his mind so that he wouldn’t be tempted to close his eyes. Harry hated the feeling of wanting to sleep desperately and being unable to do so.

A few times he caught a tiny sign of movement—perhaps the splashing of the squid in the lake or an owl going to or fro or just taking a late night jaunt. There was never anything interesting—say a unicorn, or a Centaur, or even a Blast-Ended Skrewt! Even the grounds of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the premiere school of magic in England, were deadly boring in the dead of the night. Harry sighed.

Then he jumped as a hand rested lightly on his shoulder. Harry thought at first that it was Madam Pomfrey, woken from her ‘nap,’ but then he turned and gasped when he saw that it was actually Snape. He managed to restrain a scream, but jumped off the bed and backed away quickly. From a distance he saw that Snape had a steaming potion in his other hand.

Harry shook his head. Did Snape think he was a *complete* idiot? Of *course* he wasn’t going to take a potion from the man, after all the potions he had been given in the past—including the Wakefulness Potion.

“Sam…” Snape began slowly. “I knew you were going to be tired, so… I made a Pepper-Up Potion. It took some time to fix, but I made sure that it wouldn’t interact with the Wakefulness Potion you’ve already been given. I was… hoping it would make staying awake a little less unpleasant.” Harry continued backing up, glancing down the Hospital Wing and seeing that Madam Pomfrey was still asleep. In a panicked haze, he stared at Snape and wondered whether he should scream to try to wake the medi-witch or if he was safe as long as she was in the room, asleep or not.

Then Snape took another step forward, and Harry *did* yell. He glanced down and saw no movement from Madam Pomfrey, and his heart raced faster. What if she wasn’t just asleep? What if Snape had done something to her? Harry glared at the man, shaking from anger but also from fear.

“Calm down, Sam.. I only cast a minor sleeping spell on her when I came in, so that we didn’t have to worry about waking her and disturbing her sleep.” Harry stiffened at hearing the magic confirmed. “I just want to give you this potion, and then I’ll leave you alone. I’m not trying to hurt you; I’m trying to help.”

Harry shook his head furiously, glancing panicked at the sleeping form of the medi-witch once again. He suddenly realized how dependent he was becoming on her. He *did* trust her, at least somewhat, even if he couldn’t always act on it. She was so nice and motherly and always knew what to say and do to calm him down—and what if she was working with Snape?! But then he second-guessed even that; after all, Snape had cast a sleeping charm on her, meaning he didn’t trust her to watch. Unless Snape just wanted Harry to *think* he didn’t trust her so that Harry would trust her more. He shook his head to clear it from the mess of thoughts and saw with a flash of fear that Snape was three steps closer than he had been, and holding out the goblet full of potion.

I’m not drinking it, you—Harry cut himself off and acted instead, slapping at the potion and trying to spill it so that he could not be forced to drink it. Snape kept hold of the goblet, with some effort, but it tipped precariously. Harry blinked when the potion poured up to the edge but stopped there instead of spilling over.

He glared, and Snape smirked slightly. “I cast a No-Spill Charm on it, as you can see—and a good thing, it seems.” He paused, looking less certain of himself. “I’m not going to force you to drink it, but I think it would help. I spent rather a lot of time on it, as well…”

Harry glanced pointedly down the length of the Wing again, and Snape sighed. “Would you like me to wake her?” Harry hesitated, wrapping his arms around himself nervously, and then nodded slowly. He just hoped that Poppy wouldn’t be angry with him.

Snape sighed again, more heavily this time, and walked away from Harry, leaving him backed into the corner as he walked closer to the other end and then cast the spell to wake Madam Pomfrey. She sat up abruptly, moaning slightly at the crick in her neck, and then blinked and looked around. “Severus? Did I fall asleep?”

“Yes,” said Snape’s amused voice. “You were completely asleep when I entered, and your patient has ‘escaped.’”

Madam Pomfrey sat up and stared in horror at the empty bed. “What--?!” she started, and then her eyes swept the room and she saw Harry in the far corner. She turned to glare at Snape. “What is my patient doing in the corner?”

Snape raised up the goblet that was still in his hand. “I made a Pepper Up Potion he could actually take, Poppy,” he said more quietly, so quiet that Harry could hardly make it out. “I thought it might make it easier for him to stay awake.”

Poppy sighed. “It was a nice thought, Severus, but did you have to corner him?” She stood stiffly, paused to stretch, and then took the goblet from his hand and moved across the room toward Harry. Snape followed her halfway before stopping and just watching.

Harry watched suspiciously as Poppy approached. They were too friendly; every alarm in his head was going off. He shook his head before she even got within five feet of him. “Sam, dear, what are you doing all the way over here?” she asked gently. “You’re supposed to be resting..”

He glared at her angrily. Why was she helping Snape? Harry had just begun to think that she, of all people, might actually be on *his* side. He shivered, and pressed back into the corner a bit as she approached, eyeing the goblet in her hand.

Poppy seemed to notice his anger and suspicion—no surprise considering he was displaying it as flagrantly as he could. “Oh, Sam,” she said sadly. “Are you mad about Severus? He’s not trying to hurt you, I promise. In fact, no one asked him to make this Pepper-Up Potion—isn’t that right, Severus?” She looked back to Snape, and he looked surprised and then nodded. She turned back to Harry. “See? He was just trying to help in the way he knows best. Here—“ she had moved much closer now, and she held out the potion to Harry. Angrily he slapped at it as he had before, hearing Snape’s abortive cry too late to get Madam Pomfrey to tighten her grasp. The goblet leapt from her hand and crashed on the floor, the clattering sound of it bouncing and rolling filling the Hospital Wing.

“Sam!” Madam Pomfrey exclaimed in frustration and a bit of anger, and Harry shrank downward a bit, unable to pull back any further. She gentled her tone at seeing his response, but it was still stern. “That is no way to treat a gift. I understand that you are frightened of Severus, but he is *not* trying to hurt you.”

Harry shook his head angrily, glaring at the goblet that she had retrieved, still full of the potion due to the No-Spill charm. When she tried to hand him the goblet again, he pushed it away but didn’t force it out of her hands. “Sam, please,” she tried again. “Just take the goblet? You don’t have to drink it, but… Have you ever had a Pepper-Up Potion before?”

Harry stared at her confusedly for a moment before remembering that she didn’t know that he was Harry Potter. He remembered in particular the Pepper-Up Potion he had been given immediately after climbing out of the lake after the Second Task. This recalled to his mind the gills, and that made him think of the Gillyweed and Snape’s ‘inspired’ method of torture. He shook, suddenly gasping for breath as though he had been drowned once again, and slid further down the wall weakly.

“Sam..? Sam!” He barely noticed movement before the medi-witch was lifting him from his crouched position and carrying him across the Hospital Wing, back to his bed. He cringed in her arms when they passed Snape, his mind conjuring more nasty images that he tried to supress. Then he was being laid down on the bed again, and covered with a blanket that was already warm. His shivering slowed and his breathing began to even out at the feeling of the pleasant warmth that Snape had always denied him, and he began to focus on what Poppy was saying.

“Sam? Sam, can you hear me?” He nodded weakly. “Oh, good!” She did indeed sound relieved at his response. “What were you remembering, dear child?” she fussed worriedly. “You stopped breathing and then suddenly started gasping—I was so worried!”

Harry glanced around quickly, looking for Snape, but he couldn’t see him. Madam Pomfrey seemed to know what he was looking for, though. “He’s here—just out of sight so that you wouldn’t panic. Would you like to be able to see him?” Harry hesitated before nodding slowly. “Alright, Severus, why don’t you move over behind me, but keep your distance.” Snape did as he was told, lurking a few feet behind Madam Pomfrey and watching with an unreadable expression. Harry made eye contact and shuddered before looking back at Poppy. “How’s that?” Harry hugged himself and looked away from both of them, feeling edgy.

“I’m sorry,” Snape said finally, after a few long moments of silence. “I’ll be going now.” Before Poppy could protest, he had swept out of the room.

Harry looked back at Madam Pomfrey and saw that she looked a little upset. “Did you have to run him off? Can’t you see he’s trying to help, Sam?”

Harry glared at her. She didn’t understand—she couldn’t, as long as he wasn’t *absolutely* sure that she wasn’t somehow working with Snape, which would be a long time. Even if Snape had just convinced her that Harry was making all this up, he wouldn’t be safe because she would inform him if Harry told her anything about who had hurt him.

“Fine,” she said shortly, obviously disappointed. “If *you* won’t drink the potion, then *I* will.” Harry shrieked in protest and stretched out a hand to stop her, sure that it was something bad and not wanting her to get hurt, but she had already drunk half the goblet. She smiled sadly at him as extra color filled her face and then her ears started to steam lightly. “There. See? Nothing harmful.” She set the goblet down at his bedside. “Now *I* won’t be falling asleep again for a while. What would you like to do?”

Harry shrugged uncomfortably. He didn’t like having her angry at him, but he still didn’t trust Snape. Just because it was apparently safe *this* time didn’t negate all the other times that Snape had hurt him! He sighed sadly and didn’t dare another glance at the medi-witch’s face, forcing himself to stare at the wall instead through slightly watery eyes.

“I think we’ve exhausted the entertainment value of Boris,” she began contemplatively. “And we certainly can’t do anything active, as that will only tired you out further. I could read to you, but I don’t know what you like..” He actually saw her sit up straight out of his peripheral vision as she made a little “oh!” sound. “Perhaps a little game! First I ask you a yes-no question, and then you ask me one. You don’t have to answer, but if you don’t, then that gives me a chance to refuse a future question. How does that sound?” Harry shrugged, but decided that it would at least keep him occupied, for the time being. But how would he ask questions? He looked at her questioningly, finally making eye contact, and she seemed to have overcome her disappointment except for a little lingering frustration in her eyes.

“Here, you’ll need this,” she said with a smile, and she pushed the parchment and quill toward him. “Would you like to ask the first question?” He shrugged, and she waited.

What was he going to ask? A yes-no question, only. He spun the quill between his fingers, a peculiar habit that he had picked up after entering the wizarding world, and tried to think. “Were you ever a medi-witch anywhere else before Hogwarts?” he finally wrote. She smiled at him.

“Yes.” Harry didn’t expect anything more, but she continued, “I worked at the children’s ward at St. Mungo’s before Albus asked me to come here. I’ve always loved to work with children. Even if you do get yourselves into *all* manner of trouble.” She winked. “Now, what am I going to ask *you*, Sam?”

Harry’s eyes twinkled slightly and he scrawled something on the parchment that she had handed back to him. “That’s not a yes-no question!”

“Indeed, it was not my question at all, silly boy,” she replied, reaching out to tweak his nose playfully. She was forcefully reminded that he was not just any boy, though, when he shied away from her hand instinctively with a look of terror on his face. She sighed. “I’m sorry, Sam, I keep forgetting. I’ll try to do better.” She bit her lip, then tried to distract him with a question. “Are you a wizard?”

Harry shifted uncomfortably, and then nodded. She actually looked quite surprised at that, and he had to write, ‘Did you think I was a Squib or a Muggle?’

Madam Pomfrey nodded slowly, her eyes very focused suddenly. “It’s only that… Well, this will be a difficult question, I’m sure, but… Before, did you do any accidental magic?”

Harry didn’t have to ask what she meant by ‘before,’ but he didn’t want to answer that question. He looked away for a long moment, then wrote one word on the parchment. “Skip.”

Poppy sighed. “Let me explain, Sam. I’m simply a little worried, because you’ve had several severe panic attacks and shown no sign of any accidental magic. It’s very unusual for this to be the case for a wizard, unless there is a *very* powerful reason for him to suppress it.” She looked deep into his eyes until Harry looked away in pain, hugging his arms to himself as his breath briefly caught in his throat.

“I’ll ask something less painful. Let’s see… Did you go to a wizarding school?”

Harry nodded. Then he wrote his next question. ‘Are you very mad at me for not taking the potion from Snape?’ He couldn’t bring himself to actually look at her, focusing instead on the parchment as he passed it across to her.

“Sam, look at me,” she said quietly, and he looked at her. She shook her head firmly. “I’m not angry at all, Sam. I—I’m sorry about my reaction earlier. It’s only that I’ve never seen Professor Snape extend himself so much toward someone, and to see that rejected was—well, it was hard. Still, I also understand that you are genuinely frightened of Severus, and I can only hope that with time you will come to trust him.”

Harry shrugged, and played idly with the blanket, having looked away again. He was waiting for her question. “Are you—are you *done* with wizarding school?” she asked finally, the disbelief sounding in her voice. Harry nodded, then rolled his eyes impatiently at the fact that he looked *so* young.

He had so many questions. ‘Why are you helping Snape?’ ‘Why did Snape bring me here?’ ‘Why can’t anyone recognize me?’ None of these could be answered with a yes or no answer. Nor could he safely ask, ‘Will I ever be safe?’ without effectively admitting to her that he felt in danger, which was sure to get him in trouble with Snape. He sighed as he held the quill over the parchment, trying to think of something. ‘Are you helping Snape?’ and ‘Are you really Madam Pomfrey?’ were questions he could never hope to get honest answers to. Finally, he wrote a compromise to the questions echoing in his mind. ‘Am I ever going to be better?’

"Oh, Sam," she responded sadly. "I wish I could give you a simple 'yes' as an answer, but that would be dishonest. It depends on so many things--physically, you will be 'better' very soon, but emotionally.. That takes time, dear.. And you will need to feel safe in order to recover." She caught his eyes and held them once again with her sharp gaze. "Is there anything you need to tell me?"

Harry started to shake his head, and then he started to nod, and then he shook his head in confusion. He looked down, staring at the parchment for a long minute, and then leaned over it to scrawl another question, not caring that it would break the rules. ‘If you had to choose between believing me or believing Snape, who would you choose?’ He hesitated, then added, ‘Honestly?’ and underlined it.

Poppy stared at the question for much longer than was necessary for her to read it, and Harry was certain that she was going to refuse to answer—and somehow he wasn’t surprised. When she finally looked up, though, she said, “It’s not just between you and Professor Snape, Sam. When I choose to trust Severus when he says that he did not do this to you, it is not because I don’t believe you. I believe that someone who looks a lot like Professor Snape did this, and I don’t blame you at all for being frightened of him. But, Professor Dumbledore would *not* have brought Severus back here if he was any danger to you, and I know he investigated following your conversation with him.”

At first Harry was merely frustrated, but then his eyes widened in horror. How had he missed it?? Madam Pomfrey, the real one, couldn’t possibly have missed the death of Albus Dumbledore. All this time he had been trying to decide whether he could trust her, and the truth had been right in front of him—of course not!

Suddenly he realized he had to get out of here, before Snape realized that his deception was failing and took him back to the dungeons from which he would never escape. He leapt off the bed, but Harry’s expression had apparently warned Madam Pomfrey to expect something and she grabbed his arm. Panicked and no longer caring much about the imposter, he swung his other arm and heard a thud as the metal band collided with her cheek, and she cried out in pain. His arm had been released, finally, and he ran for the door.

Snape had replaced the ward, apparently, as he was immediately caught and entangled by an invisible web when he tried to run through the open doorway. He struggled to break through but was only pushed even more strongly back into the room. Then, when he had been pushed clear of the door, it slammed shut. He spun to see Madam Pomfrey with her wand out, much too far for him to attack her before she could stop him with her wand.

The medi-witch was apparently not interested in waiting until he rushed her, though, and cast a Full-Body Bind on him. “Petrificus Totalus!” He was unable to dodge the bolt in time, and fell stiffly back against the door with a thud. Immediately, though, he began to struggle with the bind, and managed to break free of it before Poppy got halfway to the door to retrieve him.

Her eyes widened in surprise, one hand over her cheek and the other holding her wand tightly out in front of her. “Calm down, Sam,” she said in a warning tone. “Why don’t you go back to your bed?” she suggested. Harry glared at her before turning to focus on the door, trying to open it with his magic.

“Stupefy!” she cried, and Harry couldn’t even see the bolt to *try* to dodge it. He collapsed to the floor, paralyzed once more, but thankful that the Wakefulness Potion had not yet worn off as he attempted to push through the forced paralysis as he had with the Body Bind.

If he had been faced the right direction, Harry might have seen Madam Pomfrey throwing the floo powder into the fireplace. As it was, he heard the flare of the fire and then heard her call, “Severus Snape!” Then there was a brief period of silence (Harry had to assume that her head was in the fireplace) and he tried desperately to break free. His hand twitched, and the corners of his mouth turned up slightly in an attempted grin. Just another minute…

Harry leapt to his feet just in time to see Snape unfold himself from the fireplace, and he paled dramatically. Then he turned to the door, desperately trying to unlock it and refusing to go down without a fight. Snape surely couldn’t punish him any further than he already was going to. Harry shook slightly at the thought, his skin already prickling in anticipation of the pain to come, and a roaring sound resounding in his ears at the thought of the hole, again.

He heard the click of the lock and made to open the door triumphantly when he was suddenly grabbed from behind, his arms pinned behind him and an arm dangerously tight around his neck. Harry screamed and tried to struggle, but he had no leverage in his current position. He was being moved, he realized, and tried to kick out with his legs but only managed a few glancing hits.

Then he was released, right next to his bed, and Snape hissed, “Quickly!” He looked in the direction of the movement that he saw and Poppy was there, her wand out and ready.

“Stupefy!” she cried again, and though Harry tried to dodge, Snape didn’t give him enough room to move. As he started to collapse to the floor for the second time, Snape caught him instead and picked him up, placing his body on the bed. Harry couldn’t move his limp limbs but he could feel what they were doing, and he wanted to cry out as he felt them replacing the restraints. When he finally managed to overcome the paralysis (for the third time) several minutes later, he turned his head to see Snape towering over him, his eyes sharp on Harry’s prone form.

“What were you *thinking*, you imbecile?” Snape sneered finally. “Are you so arrogant, so vain that you think you can take Madam Pomfrey’s valuable time without measure and then *attack* her when you see fit? And just what did you hope to achieve with such an attempt?”

Harry tried not to shrink back from the sneering face, and his eyes darted around frantically. He tried to see Snape’s hands from his supine position, and his breathing quickened when he couldn’t. Did he have the knife? He lifted up his head slightly to try to see where Madam Pomfrey had gone, and Snape revealed one of his hands to slam his head back down harder than was strictly necessary. Harry screamed with panic and scrambled to try to get out of the restraints.

“Calm yourself, boy.. or perhaps I should calm you?” Snape’s other hand moved into Harry’s view, wand and all. Harry froze, even his breathing stopping as he tried to control himself and keep Snape from casting whatever spell he had planned. Snape twirled his wand absently and asked, “Tell me… what were you thinking?”

Harry stared at him, eyes wide, hardly daring to breathe. He couldn’t open his mouth, because he didn’t want to risk blurting something out, so he tried to get unnoticeable breaths in through his nose, though he was feeling light-headed from lack of oxygen. Snape stared down at him, his expression getting darker all the time. “Tell me, you idiot,” he finally growled, “or I will find out for myself!”

Harry shuddered slightly and tried to focus on not struggling. He wasn’t supposed to fight—but he wasn’t supposed to speak, either, and now Snape was demanding that he speak. He didn’t understand, except to assume that Snape was just creating another excuse to torture him. His muscles tensed again, and he couldn’t force them to relax.

“Very well,” said Snape nastily. “The hard way it is. Legilimens.”

It was horror, pain, terror, death. It was black and it was small and the walls were closing in and it was the hole. Harry knew nothing before and nothing after, but only this. He heard a voice screaming, and realized that it was his own. He was screaming, and screaming, and screaming, and it would never end, and he was going to die, the walls were going to collapse on top of him or worse, he was going to be trapped in here forever until he died of dehydration.

The world snapped back into focus with a gasp, but there was still screaming—two voices, not just one. He thrashed at the restraints and continued to scream until a hand gently touched his brow, and he subsided into desperate sobs, thankful that he was no longer in the hole but not certain that he wasn’t about to be put back there. The hand was gone and the other screamer was subsiding as well now, and then he heard murmurs that he tried to make sense of.

“Severus, what did you *do*?” the female voice asked first.

“Merlin.. oh dear Merlin, he’s claustrophobic, Poppy, he’s claustrophobic, that’s all I could see, the dark and the walls closing in and—“

“Shush.. come on, you’ve got to help me here—you need to lay down but I can’t get you there on my own, and I don’t want to levitate you. Come on..!” she grunted slightly with effort and then both Snape and Madam Pomfrey came into view, the former looking pale and very weak and leaning on the medi-witch as they hobbled around to the next bed in the row.

“You cast Legilimens on him, didn’t you? You blistering idiot! What were you thinking? Casting Legilimens on a defenseless, innocent boy who had done nothing to deserve it!” Madam Pomfrey was obvious quite upset.

Snape sputtered indignantly. “Innocent? Nothing to deserve it?! He broke your cheekbone!”

“Accidentally,” she said firmly. “I grabbed him, Severus. And as you just established, extremely unethically might I add, he has been very traumatized. I don’t think he was even aware of hurting me—he was just trying to get free.”

Harry’s sobs had quieted even more as he was distracted by attempting to understand their conversation. Now Madam Pomfrey turned her attention back to him, and when he registered that hers was the hand that comforted him he tried to turn his head away. “Sam… Sam!” she repeated his name more and more firmly until he finally turned to look at her, nervously. She smiled sadly. He saw now that the large, ugly bruise on her cheekbone—and that was presumably after she’d healed the main injury. “Was it something I said?” she asked, and Harry blinked and tried to figure out what she was talking about.

When it finally registered, he shrugged uncomfortably in the restraints. It had been partially what she had said—and partially realizing what he hadn’t realized before. Now he was even more confused than before, though. Snape had seemed surprised that he was claustrophobic, and Snape *knew* that. And Madam Pomfrey had yelled at him for using Legilimens, so could she really know how Snape had hurt him and still be on his side?

“Here now, dear.. Let’s see if we can make you a little more comfortable,” she said warmly, and turned her attention to his restraints, and he lifted his head hopefully to try to see what she was doing. This time, his head was not pushed back down.

Snape, however, did not appear to be pleased. “Poppy! I am *not* dragging him back to that bed again when he runs—and if you are going to insist on excusing his behavior based on trauma, then at least be sensible and don’t give him more excuses to repeat it!”

The medi-witch turned from what she had been doing to glare at her colleague. “I’ll have you know that I am *not* completely releasing him—simply implementing a different form of restraint that will give him a *bit* more freedom of movement. How would *you* like it if I tied you to that bed?”

Harry was ecstatic to find that Poppy had undone the restraint on his left arm completely before turning her attention to the angry Potions Master. He tried to move as discretely as possible as he reached across and carefully unfastened the buckle on the other restraint by touch only.

Based on his tone of voice, Harry wouldn’t be surprised to find that the man on the next bed was rolling his eyes. “*I* am not attempting to run, nor have I *ever* broken your cheekbone. If I recall, it was the Headmaster that first suggested the restraints,” he finished, smug as though he had already won the argument.

“It was the Headmaster,” Poppy replied with her usual protective temper. “And he suggested *light* restraints, if you’ll recall. At the moment, the problem was simply with the boy tearing at those metal cuffs!”

“Yes, and then he started kicking, and then running, and now he’s begun to attack anyone who gets in his way. Can’t you see that this is only escalating?”

Harry sat up slowly behind Poppy as she spoke, hoping for just another minute or two that Snape didn’t notice his movement. “He’s testing us, Severus, in more ways than one. He may be trying to see how much he can get away with, but he is also testing to see how we will deal with him. If we choose methods too harsh, how will we ever differentiate ourselves from whoever did this to him?”

“I’m not suggesting that we *torture* him. I’m merely suggesting..” There was a barely noticeable pause, and then he continued, “.. that we not allow him to walk right out of the room while we argue over methods.” His voice was very pointed and Harry froze in the middle of unstrapping the last restraint over his ankle.

“Sam!” she cried out, and he knew the medi-witch had turned and seen him sitting up and in the process of escape. “Lay back down *now*, Sam,” she said sternly, and he rocked back slightly but didn’t lay all the way back. He glared at her, not willing to go down without a fight. “Sam,” she began again in a gentler tone, “I have an idea that I think will make both of us much more comfortable. I don’t want to constrain your movement, I just want to keep you from hurting yourself or anyone else if you panic. Do you understand?” Harry continued to glare at her, deliberately bending his free leg so he could hug his knee to himself protectively.

“Sam, that is enough!” she exclaimed. “Lay back down!” Harry made an angry noise in his throat and hugged his knee to himself more tightly. Wasn’t it enough that he couldn’t get off the bed like this? She moved forward as though to force him but Snape’s voice stopped her.

“Don’t risk it, Poppy,” Snape said smoothly. “*I’ll* take care of it,” he sneered. Harry’s breath caught in his throat. Snape slowly sat up and then moved across the divide between the beds, every step seeming to take hours as Harry desperately fought between laying back down and refusing to cooperate. Then Snape was there and pressing him back, and he couldn’t muster any resistance. They strapped his arms back down and were pulling the restraint over his ankle when he suddenly screamed in panic and refound his resistance. He pulled his leg free for an instant, but then Snape grasped his ankle tightly and pulled it back down despite his resistance.

He yanked angrily at the restraints as they muttered to each other too quietly for him to hear. He had been *so* close, and then they tied him up again. Harry sagged back against the bed, feeling hope leave him almost as quickly as it had come.

The murmuring stopped and Snape approached with his wand, causing Harry to tense once again. Snape was murmuring something in Latin and tapping his ankles, and then his wrists. To both their surprise, though, when he moved to tap the restraint on his first wrist the first of the metal cuffs popped open. Harry heard a gasp from Madam Pomfrey, and then Snape tapped the second wrist without saying anything and the other popped open as well. The Potions Master glanced back at Poppy so that Harry couldn’t see his face.

Then the medi-witch was bustling up next to him and removing the restraints on his wrists so that she could see the skin that had been under the arm cuffs. Harry tried to hug his arms to himself, not wanting her to see, but Snape held one and Madam Pomfrey held the other, ignoring his noises of protest.

Poppy gasped again when she saw the condition of his wrists. She looked to Harry and her eyes were obviously moist. “Sam, did you..?” Harry glared at her then, daring her to tell him that he had been wrong. She didn’t understand; she would never understand. He turned his head to the side, as far away from Snape as he could. He shivered as the man inspected the inside of his arm, tracing his hand over the scar that ran the length of his inner arm.

“Poppy,” Snape murmured, obviously trying to get her attention. Harry felt something appear on his arm, but it definitely wasn’t cold or heavy like the metal armband had been. There was a short pause, and then his other arm was held up (against his will) and he felt something appear there as well.

“Sam,” the medi-witch said, even as he could still feel Snape doing something with his left arm. “Sam,” she tried again to get his attention, and listlessly he looked at her. “You’ll be able to sit up in a just a minute, Sam,” she said with an attempt at an encouraging smile, though it was hardly an overwhelmingly happy expression. Harry just stared at her for another moment before looking away.

Snape released his wrist but he couldn’t move it; the man had replaced the restraint. Then he felt the hands holding his other wrist changing, and turned his head the other way so that he wouldn’t have to look at Snape. Harry only had to wait another minute before Snape spoke a quick string in Latin that he couldn’t quite catch and then stepped back.

“Sam? You can sit up now,” said Madam Pomfrey. Harry just laid there staring toward the end of the Hospital Wing, though some part of him was vaguely curious why he would suddenly be able to move. Had Snape’s incantation vanished the restraints? If so, why had they bothered to put them on in the first place?

“Stop being a bloody martyr, boy,” Snape growled, and a second later he had grasped Harry’s arms and pulled him to a sitting position before he could even squeak in protest. Snape let go of Harry’s arms immediately and Harry hugged them to himself but didn’t lay back down. Then he pulled his arms away slightly to look at them.

In place of the metal cuffs that had been on his arms, there were now flesh-colored, padded cuffs. They covered approximately the same area, including the entire length of the scars on each arm. They were also seamless, so that Harry would have no idea of how to remove them aside from vanishing them, for which he still needed a wand. He pulled and tugged at them lightly, to see if they could be rotated or moved, but it was as though they were part of his arms.

Between the cuffs and his hands were a pair of strange white bands that were clearly separate from the arm cuffs. Glancing down at his ankles, he saw the same white bands on his ankles as well. He would have assumed that they were the restraints, except that there was nothing tying them to the bed.

“Sam,” Madam Pomfrey said, but Harry stared at the bed instead of looking at her. “Sam, look at me.” He moved his eyes in her direction but didn’t lift his head to see her face. “Sam, please,” she pleaded. Harry wrapped his arms around his stomach tightly as though he had a stomachache and curled over them slightly, setting his face to be expressionless. “Sam? Are you alright?” Harry shrugged irritatedly. She hadn’t asked him that when she was tying him to the bed, he thought angrily.

Suddenly her wand appeared in front of him, and he jerked away. When he did, he realized that his legs were not restrained either. He hugged his knees to him tightly and hid his face between his arms. “Sam, please look at me,” Poppy tried again, and her voice was clearly becoming impatient. “I want to explain what I’m going to do before I do it, so you don’t panic.”

At the word ‘panic’ Harry’s head came up, and he reluctantly looked at the medi-witch, his face still blank. She sighed. “Do you feel better without those heavy metal cuffs on your arms?” she asked hopefully, and he shrugged, absently feeling the strange new cuffs that had replaced them. Then he glanced at the strange white bands again. “I’m sure you want to know what those other things are,” Poppy suggested, and he shrugged again. “They’re special restraints,” Harry tensed, and her tone gentled even further, “that I will only use if absolutely necessary. As you can tell, they will let you move around, at least on the bed, and even further if I give you permission. But if you are panicking or get violent, this will make both of our lives much easier.”

At least on the bed, her words echoed in his head. He scooted toward the edge away from Madam Pomfrey, and neither she nor Snape (who was still lurking nearby) made any move to stop him. As soon as he made to swing his legs over the edge of the bed, though, he found that he simply couldn’t. His ankles stopped at the edge of the bed and refused to move any further, no matter how hard he tried.

Harry gave a frustrated noise of protest and kicked at the air above the bed, but each time his ankles slammed to a stop right as they would pass the barrier where the bed ended. Shaking slightly, he moved his hands out slowly and found the same thing true of his wrists. He curled into a tight ball again, hugging his knees painfully tightly. He realized vaguely that he was breathing faster, dangerously close to hyperventilating. Then Harry felt a hand settle on his back.

He swung his arm instinctively, and heard a cry of surprise from Madam Pomfrey, who had moved around to this side of the bed while he was panicking. Then she said clearly, “Recindo,” and Harry screamed, full-fledged panic flaring in an instant.

The white bands on his wrists had flashed brightly at Poppy’s incantation and were now pulling him back to the center of the bed. He fought with every bit of energy that he had left, but it didn’t do any good at all—his legs were stretched away from him even as his arms were pulled back to his sides. The restraints on his arms even regulated the angle of his forearms, pulling them down so that the most upright Harry could be was to prop himself up on his elbows. Even that was difficult, and after another moment of struggle and a bit more shrieking he flopped back so that he was flat on his back, sobbing brokenly.

Madam Pomfrey was there again, her hand stroking his forehead comfortingly. He moaned and tried to turn his head away, not wanting to be comforted, but the hand followed his head and continued. “Hush.. shh.. It’s alright,” she whispered, and Harry moaned and shook his head a few times. It was *never* going to be alright, that much was obvious. “I’m sorry, Sam, I wanted to warn you, but.. Now you know what they can do, and I will use them as little as possible. In fact,” she incanted a Latin phrase that sounded similar if not the same as the one that Snape had used earlier, and Harry immediately curled up on his side with his back to her.

The medi-witch merely moved around to where she was in front of him. Harry wanted to close his eyes but he couldn’t sleep yet, even though he was so exhausted. He was about to roll over so as to get an unobstructed view of a wall to stare at, when Poppy lowered a tray with parchment and quill on it into his field of vision. “Got anything to say?” she asked in a somewhat teasing voice, and even though—or maybe because—he was so irritated, he nodded quickly and sat up.

‘Let me go!’ was his first demand. As he passed the parchment to her he looked up and saw that Snape was still lurking. How could he have forgotten? He paled and scooted back slightly, trying to see how angry the man was at having seen him write. Snape’s expression was completely implacable, though; after a momentary staring contest, he moved forward to stand just behind Madam Pomfrey and read over her shoulder.

“I have let you go, in a manner of speaking,” she replied evenly. “And once the Wakefulness Potion has worn off and you’ve had a good rest, I’ll give you free reign of the Hospital Wing, as long as you behave.” She smiled softly at him, but he just grabbed the parchment as soon as she stretched it out far enough that he could reach it.

A hundred responses went through his mind but none of them would work. What he really wanted to write was, ‘No, I mean let me GO—out of Hogwarts, away from you and Snape and that stupid imposter Dumbledore!’ ‘I hate you!’ would have done in a pinch, but both of those would like get him time in the hole or perhaps something worse, with Snape standing there reading everything. He forced himself to keep looking at the parchment instead of glancing at Snape, even though he knew that Snape would understand that he was properly cowed by his mere presence. He wanted desperately to ask Poppy *why* she was on Snape’s side, but he obviously couldn’t do that while he was here and probably not ever. Finally, he wrote ‘Fine,’ wearily, and pushed the parchment and quill toward her before laying down facing the opposite direction.

Madam Pomfrey sighed but didn’t make any move to come around to the other side of the bed. “Alright, Sam, I’ll give you some time to calm down. Just make some noise if you need or want something, alright?” Harry shrugged his shoulders barely so she would know that he had heard, and continued to stare at the wall blankly.

This was not a very effective way of distracting himself from all the negative thoughts that were spinning in his head, nor from his inability to fall asleep. Almost without thinking about it he began to tear at the wrist cuffs compulsively, getting progressively more frustrated as he made no progress on removing them.

Then a hand settled on one of his and he jerked away, across the bed, panicked. Seeing that it was Madam Pomfrey, he managed to avoid hyperventilating but curled inward on himself and continued to tear at the cuffs, more furiously than before. The medi-witch reached out again, and he curled his body around his hands so that she couldn’t reach them.

“Sam,” she said softly, her voice almost a whisper. “Give me your hands.” Harry shook his head furiously, tears leaking from his eyes as he tried to shut them. “Give me your hands,” she said slightly more loudly, and he shook slightly just curled tighter, though he wouldn’t have thought it possible.

“Sam.” Her voice was more insistent now, and he tensed in anticipation but wasn’t sure if he could uncurl if he tried. “Very well. Recin—“

Poppy was interrupted as Harry shrieked and somehow launched himself from his curled position toward her in a desperate scrabble for freedom or release. His wrists and ankles slammed painfully to a stop at the edge of the bed, and then the medi-witch repeated the spell she had almost managed. “Recindo!”

All he knew was panic. Once again his legs and arms were dragged in different directions, and he screamed as though in pain, his vision tunneling until he could hardly see the light in the room. He continued to scream, flat on his back now, his mouth wide open as much for the gasping breaths as for the screams that they interrupted. Then suddenly a sickeningly sweet potion was being poured into his open mouth, cutting off a scream and forcing him to gag painfully. A hand massaged his throat and he swallowed instinctively, then gasped in a breath to begin screaming again.

Instead, a calm sensation flooded through him, and he sighed and relaxed back against the bed. Someone was stroking his forehead gently, and all he wanted to do was close his eyes and enjoy the comforting sensation, but he couldn’t for some reason. He made a questioning noise in the back of his throat and looked around for the source of the comforting hand.

It was Madam Pomfrey. His brain moved sluggishly to fill in what had happened. She had asked for his hands, and he had attacked her when she started to activate the restraints—or tried, but the restraints had stopped him and then she had activated them and he had panicked and then… she must have given him a Calming Draught. That would explain why he could now think about all of that, even about the fact that he was restrained even now, without panicking.

“There now… that’s much better, don’t you think?” He yawned, another wave of tiredness stealing over him. If only he could close his eyes.. “I’m sorry, Sam. I seem to be going about this all wrong.. that is, if there *is* a right way. Maybe you should be at St. Mungo’s, but the headmaster is insistent for some reason that this is the place that you are most likely to recover.” She stared at him for a long moment. “Do you have any idea why that is?” She hardly paused before continuing, “Of course, you won’t answer. You don’t talk, even when you’re under a calming draught and exhausted. What was done to you, poor dear? And how did you come through it?”

Harry just stared at her, his mind not particularly interested in interpreting the words that she was saying. Various isolated words or phrases—‘St. Mungo’s’, ‘headmaster’, ‘calming draught’, ‘poor dear’—triggered trains of thought that he quickly stopped before they could go anywhere in particular. As for the meaning as a whole, he was far too exhausted and drained to even attempt to piece it together.

Another wave of fatigue hit and his eyelids began to droop. Harry himself didn’t recognize the significance of this, but the medi-witch clearly did. “Oh!” She pulled out her wand and Harry caught glimpses of movement through his half-closed eyes. “The Wakefulness Draught is wearing off—stay awake for a moment longer, Sam,” she exclaimed, and then bustled away. Harry closed his eyes, ready to surrender to the sweet bliss of unconsciousness that he had been denied so long. Not even the prospect of waking to pain could deter him.

Barely two seconds later, though, he was being shaken awake. “Sam.. Sam!” a voice exclaimed, and he wearily dragged his painfully heavy eyelids open, groaning in dismay at not being left to sleep. “Sorry, dear, but I want to make sure you sleep soundly—just open up and get ready to swallow.” Anything to sleep, Harry decided, and he opened his mouth and swallowed obediently when the disgusting potion was poured into his mouth. He didn’t even need to wait to be dragged under—his body was taking care of that all on its own.


Harry lay still and kept his eyes closed. Everything was wrong. He was flat on his back—Snape always strapped him down face first. He had woken naturally, not from pain in some part of his body. If he was even restrained at all, he couldn’t feel the restraints. And, strangest of all, he could *swear* that he could feel sunlight on his face. Maybe he was hallucinating. Maybe he had finally snapped and somehow failed to realize it, but his mind was creating pleasant alternatives to the torture that was the only thing that Snape had to offer.

He twitched his arm muscles slightly, and was surprised to find that he could move his wrists. He twitched his legs, and found that they could move as well. He relaxed his neck muscles, and his head lolled to the side slightly, unrestrained. Harry couldn’t wait any longer; his muscles were already tensing for a chance at escape, though part of him feared the consequences if this were another trap. He almost relaxed, almost gave up the fight, but some part of him needed to try.

Even as he snapped his eyes open to the bright room, he was moving to launch himself off the bed. He didn’t get very far, though—it was as though an invisible wall that only affected his wrists and ankles had slammed him to a halt. He tried again, more slowly, but had no success. Then he took a chance to look around.

It was the Hospital Wing, at Hogwarts. Harry would know that room in a second, having spent so many hours and days in it over the years that he attended Hogwarts. What was he doing in the Hospital Wing? He dredged his mind for memories and a few trickled back in—something about waking up in the hole, and screaming, and then Snape allowing him out? And then… and then… Snape stunning him and bringing him to the Hospital Wing? And Madam Pomfrey, and… and Dumbledore?? Harry shook his head harshly, as though to clear the hallucinations from his mind, and tried again. The memories of speaking to “Dumbledore” did not vanish, though a sensation that it was wrong did trickle through.

“Ah, Sam, you are awake,” a horridly familiar voice spoke. Harry stared up at the wizened old man—the *dead* wizened old man—and paled significantly. And what had the man called him—Sam? He scooted away from the man nervously. “I assure you, there is no reason to be afraid. I have no intent to harm you, nor does anyone else here. You are safe.” Harry (Sam?) nearly snorted in disbelief. Of all the people that he might believe that from, a dead man was one of the least likely.

“You must be feeling very well-rested—you slept for quite a long time!” the ‘headmaster’ commented idly in his usual jovial tones. Harry eyed him suspiciously, wondering if there was actually someone there impersonating the old headmaster or if it was truly a hallucination. If it was the latter, perhaps it would be better not to acknowledge it? Harry wasn’t quite sure how those things worked; he’d always been quite happily sane. Well, until he had wished for insanity or death over Snape’s ministrations, but that was a recent development that he had not yet had time to adjust to or learn from.

“Madam Pomfrey asked me to keep an eye on you. She needed some rest, too, after all. She also asked me to wake her as soon as you woke, but I think that can wait, don’t you?” the old man asked with a wink. Harry forced himself to take his eyes from the apparition and focus on the worn stone floor instead. He wasn’t there, he wasn’t there, he wasn’t there.

“Albus! Somehow I knew that you wouldn’t wake me when the child finally woke. It’s a good thing I set a warning spell as well, or I’d still be asleep.” Madam Pomfrey made a vocal entrance, but Harry had to wonder if she was any more real than Dumbledore. Perhaps he was still in the dungeons, strapped down to the table—or even in the hole. He shuddered slightly at the thought. “Sam? How are you feeling?”

Harry gave a very light shrug of his shoulders, his uncertainty only growing by the second. “Sam? Look at me please, Sam,” Poppy said in a more urgent tone, and Harry turned his head without thinking. Maybe he wasn’t Harry—maybe his name was Sam. Maybe Snape was the dream and this was the reality. But then why would he be trapped on a bed in the Hospital Wing, and why would the only ‘memories’ he could recall be these horrible nightmares? “Sam? Sam! At me, in my eyes!” the medi-witch was still speaking, and Harry followed her directions even as his thoughts spun uselessly in circles.

The gray eyes that he met were warm and concerned, yet analytical at the same time. She stared into his eyes for a long moment as if reading his thoughts, and then nodded. “I expect you’re hungry?” she said, and by the way she began bustling before she had finished it was clear that it was not a question. “And well you should be,” she continued as though she had asked and he had answered, “after sleeping so long!”

He opened his mouth to ask how long it had been, then gasped in a breath at what he had been about to do. Madam Pomfrey glanced at him and frowned disappointedly. “You can speak—you won’t be punished here,” she prodded gently, but he shook his head. Even his hallucinations were trying to confuse him! “You were asleep for nearly 20 hours—well past the length of the sleeping potion that I gave you to help you sleep soundly.”

She watched for a reaction for half a second before moving away to retrieve something. Harry watched ‘Dumbledore,’ who had backed off a small distance in order to give Madam Pomfrey some room to work. The piercing blue eyes watched him closely, and he looked away, disconcerted. A moment later, the medi-witch returned, a goblet in one hand and a bowl in the other. “Nutrition potion first,” she said, and handed him the goblet. He pushed it back towards her, refusing to take it. “Sam, please—not this again.”

Again? Harry couldn’t remember taking any potions except from Snape, and those were bad. But he wasn’t allowed to fight. He wavered for a moment in indecision before taking the goblet and swallowing the potion quickly, tensing in case he could feel its effects. The worse ones were the ones whose effects weren’t obvious, and this was apparently one of those. He pulled his knees to his chest nervously, wondering what the potion was and what it would do.

“Well done, Sam,” Poppy responded with a smile, and handed him a bowl full of porridge. “Eat up.” And eat he did—he was very hungry, just as the medi-witch had expected. Had he really slept for 20 hours? Where was Snape, and why was he letting Harry sleep so long? Harry briefly entertained the idea that he had been discovered and rescued, before remembering the blurry memory of Snape bringing him to the Hospital Wing. That meant Snape knew he was here, and this was probably another test. He paused in his eating, wondering if he was failing by taking the food he was offered.

“Sam? What’s wrong? Are you feeling alright?” Harry stared at her with an uncertain expression. She kept calling him Sam—that must be the name Snape had given her for him. Why not Salazar, his nephew, as he had told McGonagall? McGonagall—opening his mouth to speak—pain, drowning, pain, pain, drowning, terror..!

Someone was rocking him gently, humming into his ear. He was curled into as tight a ball as he could manage, gasping for breath, eyes wide with terror but somehow unseeing. He could still feel the pain covering his body, and it was hard to breath as though he had just inhaled salt water. He shook violently and only the person holding him was soothing the painful twitches.

“Shhh.. hush.. it’s alright.. it’s alright..” Harry hung on to that gentle voice like a lifeline, refusing to think of Snape or the dungeons but only the soft voice and the bright Hospital Wing finally coming back into focus. “That’s right… take a deep breath.. You’re back, you’re safe, no one is going to hurt you here..”

Here? Where was here? He couldn’t ask, he couldn’t talk, no talking, oh Merlin, no talking! He shook more violently still and the rocking began again, slowly soothing him and blanking his mind to the terror.

“Albus, can you get me a Calming Draught from the storeroom, please?” the soothing voice interrupted itself to speak, though it was still in a low, calm tone. He looked around and jolted when he saw the former headmaster, standing by the bed as though he was not dead. The arms tightened around him and he tried to relax, telling himself once again that it was a hallucination.

This strategy didn’t work as well when the hallucination returned with a goblet full of another potion. He cringed back and made a brief whining sound before freezing, remembering the rules—no fighting. He remained still except for his uncontrollable shaking as the contents of the goblet were poured down his throat, and swallowed the potion so sweet that he almost instinctively rejected it. Finally, his jittery mind was covered in a blanket of calm, and his shaking slowed as the tension drained from his body.

Harry took a few deep breaths, relaxing further every time. The arms encircling him squeezed comfortingly and then moved him gently to the side. When Madam Pomfrey moved off the bed slowly, smiling at him sadly, he realized that she had been the one calming him. He curled inward on himself and simply watched as she moved a little further away and talked in hushed tones with the man who looked so much like Dumbledore.

He watched blankly as they argued over something, Poppy in particular waving her arms about and Dumbledore restraining himself to a few calming hand motions and a gesture or two in Harry’s direction. Somehow he knew that they were arguing over him, and he hoped that whatever they decided that it had nothing to do with sending him back to Snape. Not that he was panicked at the idea, strangely enough; he simply knew intellectually that it would be bad thing. The panic would come later, after whatever she had given him (a Calming Draught?) had worn off.

Finally, the two stopped arguing, and Madam Pomfrey turned back to smile at Harry warmly even as Dumbledore glanced at him one more time before turning to leave the Hospital Wing. Harry felt some of his confusion drain away as the direct evidence of his hallucination moved out of sight.

“Now, are you still hungry, Sam? You never finished what you were eating,” Poppy asked, extending the bowl toward him again. He stared at her for a moment, trying to figure out why she was asking him—Snape never did. He just handed him the bowl and told him to eat. Harry probably would have anyway, since he was always so hungry. He glanced at the bowl suspiciously, wondering if it held more than he could see, then decided that if she wanted him to eat she would make him anyway. He nodded slightly and took the bowl from her hands, finishing off the rest of its still-warm contents in short order.

“Alright, now just sit still while I check you,” the medi-witch said in a calm tone, and Harry froze in place as well as he could while she pulled out her wand and began to run it over him. After only a few seconds she sighed heavily. “Relax, Sam.. There’s nothing to be afraid of.” He forced himself to relax slightly while still trying not to move. Finally, she was done. “You seem to be doing as well as expected—the sleep has done you some good, as have the nutrition potions and some more food. How would you like to get off of that bed?”

Harry shrugged. He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to get off the bed. Snape usually told him what he was supposed to do. When Madam Pomfrey began walking toward the far end of the Hospital Wing, though, he hesitantly slid off of the bed, surprised that he wasn’t stopped like he had been before. His ankles easily cleared the edge of the bed, following closely by his wrists. Then he lingered at the edge of the bed, still close enough to get back on in a hurry if he wasn’t supposed to be off of it at all.

“You don’t have to come if you don’t want,” Poppy threw over her shoulder casually. Harry froze in place but didn’t leap onto the bed just yet. Did that mean she wanted him to come with her, or not?

Harry watched as she moved down the aisle, and then stopped at the window, leaning on the sill and staring out at the grounds. He moved forward slightly as she didn’t seem to be looking back, curious at what she was looking at. She laughed out loud, and he moved forward next to another bed. He was about halfway down the aisle toward the windows when she turned and he froze, staring at her wide-eyed while waiting for a response.

“Oh, so you’re coming?” she said with a smile, and he nodded hesitantly and moved forward, this time without stopping. The medi-witch appeared pleased, and he relaxed slightly.

Then Harry looked out the window, and snorted quietly at the scene that met his eyes. A sopping wet Hagrid was running across the grounds after, of all things, a giant white duck! The duck had a polka-dotted umbrella firmly in its beak and seemed to be getting ready to take off. Hagrid’s mouth was wide open as though he were yelling at the duck, but it didn’t seem to be stopping or even slowing. Meanwhile, Fang was snapping at Hagrid’s heels as though this were all a game.

Madam Pomfrey laughed quietly and smiled at him. The small smile that had twitched on his lips when he had first seen what was happening hard already died, and he couldn’t resummon it even if it might have pleased her. He shrugged his shoulders nervously and moved his eyes back outside quickly, just in time to see Hagrid leap forward and ‘tackle’ the duck, with Fang leaping on top of him to come out the true victor. Still, the half-giant did come out of the heap holding his precious umbrella. Hagrid brushed himself off and then moved off toward his hut, admonishing Fang the whole way. His tone must not have been very angry, though, as Fang’s tale continued to wag the entire time. The duck hurried back to the lake before Hagrid changed his mind about letting it live.

Harry was absorbed in what he was watching that he didn’t immediately realize that Madam Pomfrey was no longer standing next to him. When he did, he turned and froze at what he saw, his mind suddenly blank.


Poppy Pomfrey was not one to admit defeat. Never, in her many years working in the Hogwarts Hospital Wing, had she ever needed to request outside medical help for any of the students or others that the Headmaster asked her to heal. That record was now broken by the frail teen who now stood by the window, slightly more relaxed but still visibly tense as he watched the happenings on the Hogwarts grounds that day. Poppy was just happy that she had managed to get him distracted; he didn’t seem to notice yet that she had stepped back a few feet to discuss potions with Severus Snape in low tones.

‘Discuss’ was a rather strong term, however, as she was mostly just listening to Severus talk, her mind only half on his words. He was explaining to her his shortage of ingredients and that he would be unable to make all the potions she had requested until he was able to get out and buy more. She was still considering the child by the window. The medi-witch had been shocked when the headmaster had listened to her explain that she was unable to properly heal the mental and emotional wounds that this boy had, and then proceeded to tell her that he still insisted that the child remain at Hogwarts.

What did the old man know—or think he knew—about this child that made him so insistent? Poppy had to admit that there was something about the boy—something about the way that he was so strong and so weak at the same time. Broken, and yet still fighting nonetheless. But Poppy had no experience with dealing with this kind of massive emotional trauma, deliberately inflicted. She had proven that time after time as she unintentionally triggered new panic attacks in the poor child.

Severus was still explaining her options in terms of which potions she would get before and after he went to buy new ingredients when she saw the boy notice her absence. He stiffened and turned to see where she had gone, but his eyes fell first on the Potions Master. To her surprise he did not panic as he had in the past; instead, he fell perfectly still, and it was almost as though she could see the light disappearing from his eyes.

“Sam?” Poppy called hesitantly, but she received no response from the child. This did capture Severus’ attention, though, and he stopped speaking and turned his attention to the boy as well. His sharp eyes took in the boy’s posture and his facial expression and he tensed slightly in response. “Sam? Are you alright?”

The blank eyes flicked to her and the back to Snape, as though asking a question. Snape seemed to know what was expected of him. “Answer her,” he said gruffly, and that was about as polite an order as Poppy had ever heard from him. The child looked back to her and nodded, but there was no expression on his face. Poppy looked to Snape.

“What’s happened to him?” she asked, her voice slightly panicked despite her attempts to control it. “You know something!”

Snape’s eyes looked slightly haunted as he turned to her. “He has… withdrawn. Something he has seen—probably me—has recalled a memory or set of memories so terrifying that his only response was to withdraw to a place where he couldn’t be hurt or scared.”

“Will he—will he come back?” she gasped in a tone that even to her sounded frantic.

Snape sighed. “Yes… and possibly no. He… his ‘real’ self will emerge from time to time, but will only remain if he deems it ‘safe’ to do so. If not, he will submerge himself further and further each time until eventually he no longer comes out.”

Poppy stared at the empty shell in front of her in horror. “How.. how do we make him feel ‘safe’?” She had thought that things were bad before, when the teen had panic attacks and struck out at her and tried to run, but this was much, much worse. The boy’s eyes remained on Severus, and he was blanker even than the recent victims of Imperius that she had seen.

“’We’ will do nothing. Since I was the likely trigger, I should not be present. However, you should strive to give him as many ‘enjoyable’ things to do as possible. Your goal is to create an environment as different as possible from that that he experienced before. I would recommend creating a way to track him and then allowing him to wander, as he was clearly restrained before. And as few orders as possible.”

Poppy sighed, looking again at the boy who still stood there waiting for an order. “I cannot understand why the headmaster will not send him to St. Mungo’s. I obviously do not know how to deal with him—even you know better!”

“I have had… experience… with this sort of thing, in the past. As for the headmaster, I have long since ceased to attempt to divine his motives in anything. They are beyond fathoming, in most cases, and when they are transparently obvious is when they are most likely to be incorrect.” Snape glanced at the boy, making eye contact for a moment before sighing. “I should be going, in case he recovers quickly. It is unlikely, but… Any contact we have should not be in his presence, until he is significantly recovered. I will deal with the potions on my own.”

Madam Pomfrey nodded instinctively, her eyes still on the boy. “Thank you, Severus.”

When Snape had swept from the room, she moved closer to the boy. “What would you like to do, Sam?” No response. “You may do whatever you want, you know. You may sleep, or rest, or I can get you something to read, or we can play a game… does anything sound interesting?” She was trying to treat him ‘normally’ despite the fact that his behavior was not at all normal.

The teen still didn’t respond, and Madam Pomfrey knew that the days were going to stretch out in front of her like this.

Weeks, in fact, though she didn’t know that yet.

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  Reparo, Pt 2: Confundo Here's part 2.. this should follow naturally no matter what beginning to Reparo you've read. Enjoy!

Part 1 (long, r-rated) | Part 1 (short, PG-13 rated) | Home | Next

Reparo, Part 2: Confundo

The Master pulled him from the hole in the morning. He stared up at the Master while his body was stretched out, causing various muscles to spasm and forcing kinks out of his body. He didn’t feel pain, however; he simply stared up at the Master, waiting for an order. “Potter? Potter!” the Master called, and making no sense of this he ignored it. The Master frowned. “Broken so soon? How disappointing. I had hoped that you would last a bit longer—Savior of the Wizarding World and all.” The Master stared down at him for a long moment before sighing. “No matter. You will just have to assist me in brewing the cure for dissociation. How unfortunate that I did not think to prepare it in advance—it takes several months to complete. However… there is a certain irony in you assisting me in preparing your own ‘cure’.” The Master continued to stare down at him for a moment longer with a smirk on his face before it turned to a glare.

“To the bed.” He obeyed without question, crawling because his ankles would not carry his weight. He always obeyed without question; what else would he do? “Eat this.” Long minutes passed in silence. “Follow me,” and then he was levitated onto the broomstick and it followed the Master out of the room.


Day after day after day passed in this manner. Every night the Master led him to the Hole to sleep; he no longer gave him the Wakefulness Potion. Likewise, he no longer had to be dragged into the hole, nor did he struggle or push against the walls. If he had been conscious enough to be thankful, he would have been happy that the walls did not close in on him as long as he didn’t touch them. However, the part of him that was capable of that was buried deep, deeper all the time. “Harry” had come up several times to see if it was ‘safe,’ but as he was always in the presence of the Master or in the Hole, “Harry” burrowed deeper in terror every time.
His days consisted of following directions. There was one Potion that they worked on all the time, that the Master seemed to find very important, and talked about frequently in a gleeful tone; he didn’t try to understand. He wasn’t meant to understand; he was only meant to obey. And obey he did, day after day after day.

He had no idea how much time had passed. He didn’t keep track of time. He was only here—there was no past, nor any future. There was only now, and the Master, and the Hole, and obeying. He had no doubts, nor questions; he didn’t even comprehend what those could be. “Harry” did, but “Harry” was long gone, never to return in all likelihood.

One day, in triumphant glee, Snape finally turned off the burner below The Potion, the one that he had been concerned with for so long, and ladled a small amount out into a vial. Then he retrieved another potion, already in a vial, and carried the two vials out of the room after ordering him to follow. He obeyed, and was led to the Hole. It was early, but if the Master ordered him in, he would obey.
“Drink this,” ordered the Master, and he drank. “Now drink this.” He drank. “Go in the hole.” He did as he was told, and laid down in the darkness to wait for morning.


He could not sleep this night, however. One of the potions that Snape had given him had to have been the Wakefulness Potion. That would explain why he could not even close his eyes in the darkness, except to blink. He stared into the darkness for long minutes, until suddenly he felt something jerk inside of him. “Harry” was coming, coming up to the surface, taking over, but it was not the tentative process that had taken place in the past. This was violent, forced, and “Harry” was no more pleased than he was. Then “he” was no more, and there was only Harry.
Harry woke on a cold stone floor, curled on his side. He couldn’t remember anything—where he was, why, what had happened before he had gone to sleep.. His mind was a blank. He opened his eyes and saw only darkness. It was dark—too dark. He brought his hands to eyes quickly, fearing that he was blind, but he didn’t know. He started to push himself up to a sitting position and cracked his head on the ceiling, which was disturbingly low—or was it possible that he was too high? Either way, he couldn’t sit up.

“Hello?” he said hesitantly, and was surprised to find that his throat was dry and his voice cracked, as though from disuse. His voice echoed disturbingly, as though the walls were very close. He reached out from his half-raised position and almost immediately felt the wall. He followed it with his hand, and came to a corner. He followed it again, preparing himself to have to move, but came to another corner all too soon. He felt his breath speeding up as he realized that he hardly had to move his arms away from his body to feel the walls on either side, and there was another wall closing him in. He also couldn’t turn over easily, so he began to crawl backward, hoping to get out of whatever small space he had somehow fallen asleep in.
He only made it a *very* short distance backward, though, before he impacted with another wall. This was when he really started to panic, his breath coming faster as he realized what a tiny space he was in. And he couldn’t even remember how—

Suddenly memories came back to him: waking on a bed, tied down, being whipped, being legilimized, and being stuffed into the cupboard. He remembered the potion Snape made him drink, that kept him awake, and then being Legilimized over and over until his mind was composed of only two memories, and then waking up in the hole. He pushed at the walls desperately and screamed as they closed in on him again. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move; he was going to DIE! He screamed and screamed and remembered retreating inside himself, but he couldn’t—what had been a tiny little thread, easy to snap, was now a powerful rope that had dragged him back to consciousness and was keeping him there.

The panic was too much for him to handle, though. Suddenly he lost all control of the magic that he had been holding inside of himself for so long out of fear. It burst out of him in a huge, overwhelming wave, and Harry feared that the hole might collapse on him. He hadn’t given the magic any guidance, and there was no telling *what* it would do.

He was certain he might have passed out from the exhaustion if not for the Wakefulness Potion; instead, he laid still for long minutes, too tired to even panic despite a part of him that was still very upset. The adrenaline rushed back after only a short time, no matter how long it had felt, and he moved to press against the walls that had been right up against him only to find that they were no longer. He felt around and found that the walls were back out again, further even than when he woke up, though not large enough for him to sit up. He could, however, turn over onto his back. He did so and then pressed at the walls, but they didn’t give. He screamed again, in panic, and continued to scream even though he couldn’t tell if the walls were closing in or not. It was never going to end, never, he was going to die in this awful dark hole with the walls closing in around him and his throat screaming for water as loudly as he was screaming out of panic.

Horribly long seconds passed, each one like an hour, and he continued to scream horribly, the panic filling his mind until nothing else could. He couldn’t stand it; his breath came faster and faster between screams, while he dragged them out for as long as possible between gasping for breath again. He was feeling horribly lightheaded but he couldn’t even close his eyes much less pass out. He wished for it, hoped for it, would have begged for it if he could just stop screaming, but he couldn’t.

Suddenly the rumbling of the door and the sudden influx of light snapped him out of his screaming fit. “Lumos,” he heard Snape say, and he almost ran into the man’s face as he scrambled desperately out of the hole and away from it, not caring what he would say. He was not going back in there, he wasn’t. He didn’t even try to get to his feet, just scrambled across the floor on his hands and knees until he was in the opposite corner from Snape, from which he watched him, terrified.

Snape looked into the hole, using his still lit wand, then looked back at Harry, his expression horrified. “What on earth?” he asked rhetorically. Harry eyed him nervously, wondering what kind of new game this was. Then, he decided he didn’t care. He had to get out of here, right now!
This time, he launched himself to his feet, running for the door as fast as he could (which wasn’t very fast). “Stupefy!” he heard Snape’s voice cry, and he gave a strangled cry of terror and tried to outrun the red bolt. It slammed into his back and then he was on the floor, paralyzed, in a haphazard pile of limbs.

“Mobilicorpus!” Snape incanted next, and Harry was surprised to find himself moving to an upright position and floating in front of the man. Why hadn’t Snape resorted to ropes again, like he seemed to find so amusing? What kind of game was this?


Snape had been walking back to his room through the twisted hallways of the dungeons after a long day of making potions for the Order when he heard the strange noise. He stopped, then began walking again, more slowly, following it with his keen hearing born of years of teaching sneaky brats.

He opened the door which it seemed the sound was coming from behind, and gasped as it became slightly louder and he identified it. It sounded like muffled screams, and they just kept going. He moved quickly across the room, only to find an apparently solid wall from which the screams were emanating. Holding his wand out (which he had drawn at the first bit of strangeness) he began with a simple spell. “Alohamora!” To his great surprise, a panel slid up into the wall and the screaming stopped abruptly and Snape lowered himself to his knees and then bent over to look into the small space. “Lumos,” he incanted, and then had to refrain from swearing or cursing the sudden blur that almost collided with his face as it exited the hole. He followed it with his eyes until it finally came to a stop in the opposite corner, at which point he could see what it was—a child.

It was a boy, perhaps fifteen or sixteen and clearly malnourished. He was dressed only in shorts, and had metal that looked heavy surrounding his wrists. His legs, arms and chest were all bare to reveal curving scars covering every inch of exposed skin. The boy had long black hair that hung to his shoulders but was not well cared for, and a slender face, though it was hard to tell if it was by nature or from malnourishment. Snape couldn’t see much else from across the room, but the child’s posture spoke of severe abuse and distrust. Turning back to the hole and peering in with his still lit wand, he understood why. Who would stuff a child in such a small space and leave them? Worse still, who *had* done so, and in Hogwarts no less? And where had all those scars come from?

He looked back toward the boy and spoke his only thought. “What on earth?” The boy eyed him nervously before suddenly bolting for the door. Snape reacted instinctively to the idea of a strange person running around Hogwarts, even if it was a child. “Stupefy!” Watching the stick figure crumble, he almost felt sorry. Then he reminded himself that he was the greasy git and cared about no one (except perhaps Albus Dumbledore). For now, he would take the child to the Hospital Wing, report his presence to Albus, and then wash his hands of the whole thing.
“Mobilicorpus,” he spoke, and then guided the now upright figure carefully in front of him through the corridors toward the Hospital Wing. The school was nearly empty as school had already been out for almost a week, but he heard the portraits that were awake chattering around him about who the child could be and what Snape was doing with him. He glared at several who got a little too loud or nosy, and continued on his way.

These were questions he had, as well—who was the boy, and more important, how had he gotten into Hogwarts and into that hole in the wall? Snape was almost absolutely certain that he was no student, unless he looked *very* different than he had in the past. Snape had all of them for the first five years, and at that point their faces were generally indelibly ingrained in his face. He could usually put a name to a face even years later when he encountered them in Diagon Alley (or, more rarely, Knockturn Alley).

Still, the point was that the boy should not have even been in the school, much less somehow stuffed into that hole, wearing almost nothing and covered with scars. From the way he had been screaming, Snape had to assume that he had not crawled in there of his own desire (which was sensible, for Snape could think of no reason besides extreme agoraphobia that would drive someone to enclose themselves in such a space voluntarily). And since the child had hurried out of the space as if his life depended on it, that was certainly not the case.

“Poppy!” he called out urgently. “Poppy, are you here?” He hoped the matron of the Hospital Wing hadn’t yet left for her summer holiday—he wasn’t sure he could properly diagnose the problems that the boy had, though he could easily brew potions once they had been diagnosed. “Po—“

“Yes, Severus, what is it?” Madam Pomfrey asked, bustling out of her office, though Snape knew her quarters were just on the other side. “You do realize it is the middle of the—oh!” She had seen the boy.

“Yes, oh,” Snape responded drily, directly the boy’s limp body carefully to the nearest bed and lowering him down. “I’ve no idea who he is or how he ended up in Hogwarts, so don’t ask me. I heard him screaming and tracked him down to a hidden little storage hole in one of the unused Potions labs.” He started to turn. “I will leave you to examine the boy and go to report this to Dumbledore,” he stated, and had his back to Pomfrey and was halfway to the door before she stopped him seconds later.

“Severus!” Poppy cried out as she got closer to the boy. “What have you done to him??”
Snape turned around, perplexed. “I just told you I had done nothing. I merely found him in a storage hole, screaming, and brought him up here.”

“Then why is he unable to move at the moment?” Poppy demanded. “Did he move after you took him out of the hole?”

Snape blinked. “He should be unconscious—I instinctively Stunned him when he tried to run. He got himself out of the hole, but didn’t run right away.”

“Come here, Severus,” Poppy beckoned, and he came closer. There he saw that she was indeed correct—the boy’s eyes were wide open, fixed that way by the spell. But he had cast Stupefy…
“What happens if you cast Stupefy on someone who is under the influence of a Wakefulness Potion?” he asked contemplatively. Who had given the boy a Wakefulness Potion he didn’t know, but…

“I’m not certain…” Poppy admitted. “Perhaps paralysis. Enervate!”
Snape might have stopped her from casting the spell to give him movement again so hastily, but it was too late. In an instant, the boy scrambled to a sitting position back against the wall away from them, and glanced back and forth quickly, an expression somewhere between confused and terrified taking over his face.

“What’s your name, dear?” Poppy asked gently, and then the boy’s eyes fixed on Snape and shook his head almost angrily. “What’s happened—who did this to you?” Poppy tried again, but the boy’s eyes were fixed carefully on Snape still.

Snape shifted uneasily under the intense gaze. There were too many emotions to count in the boy’s eyes, most prominent of which seemed to be terror and anger—but though these were common emotions from his students, they seemed to be much stronger in this case. “I am going to report to Albus now, Poppy,” he informed, and then he turned and strode from the room. He could practically feel the boy’s eyes following him the whole way, but he didn’t turn back to check.


Harry stared at Snape as he left the room. What kind of game was he playing *this* time? He shuddered at the thought of the potential results of this, and tried not to think about the comment in horribly poor taste that Snape had made before leaving. He thought even *Snape* wouldn’t joke about Albus being alive when he was long dead—or perhaps he was attempting to confuse Harry. Harry resolved not to be confused.

“Dear, what should I call you?” Poppy tried again. Harry self-consciously pulled his knees to his chest and hugged them, covering some of his scarred chest. The medi-witch sighed when she received no vocal response. “Will you at least lay back so I can examine you?” Harry shook his head mutely. “Those are some nasty scars you have—and what are those things on your wrists for?” she asked, still trying to get him to talk. He shook his head again, but this time pantomimed writing on his hand.

Madam Pomfrey brought him a parchment, a flat surface to rest it on, and a self-inking quill. Harry stared at the parchment for a long time, shaking slightly at the thought of the results if Snape found out he had been communicating with Madam Pomfrey. Finally, he wrote quickly, “You can’t punish me for writing!” and gave the parchment to the nurse, pulling his knees to his chest again as he watched her carefully for her reaction.

Several expressions crossed the medi-witch’s face, including confusion and worry but also anger and frustration, before she looked up at Harry earnestly. “You are not going to be punished for *anything* anymore, child. You’re safe here, I promise.” She wiped a tear from her eye quickly. “Please, will you tell me your name?”

Instead, Harry gestured wildly for her to return the parchment, and then scrawled another message. “Is Snape coming back? Can you—“ he crossed that out, then finished, “Will you keep him away, please?”

Madam Pomfrey looked at him concerned, now. “What does Professor Snape have to do with anything, child?” She handed him back the parchment, but all he did was underline the previous sentences. “I don’t know if he’s coming back,” she responded when he passed it back. “However, I cannot keep him away from the Hospital Wing permanently—he provides me with Potions, and as he was the one who found you, he has the right to follow your progress as well. He won’t hurt you, though,” she assured.

Harry wasn’t convinced. In fact, he wasn’t reassured by her answers at all—so far, she hadn’t said anything that made him feel sure that she wasn’t actually an imposter as part of another ‘game’ that would result in more drowning or time in the hole or another of Snape’s awful punishments. Making up his mind, he kicked the tray that Madam Pomfrey had brought for him to write on at the medi-witch (mentally apologizing in case she was innocent) and then ran for the door.

When he tried to run through the wide-open door, though, it was as though he had run into a giant spider-web—something invisible caught him and then slowly bounced him back into the room. He moved to try again but froze in terror at a hand on his shoulder. Harry turned slowly to see Madam Pomfrey standing behind him, and he quaked slightly at the wand in her hand and the frown on her face. “Let’s go back to the bed, alright?” she ‘suggested,’ waving her wand in the direction of the bed. Harry paled slightly further and followed the lead of her hand on his shoulder nervously.

“Just lay back and relax, dear. Relax, I said—no one is going to hurt you here,” she soothed, but Harry couldn’t relax, part of him waiting for the restraints to begin snapping closed. He shook slightly all over, and when Poppy put her hand on his leg to try to calm him, he jerked away quickly, still quivering.

“All right, stay right here, dear,” the medi-witch told him, and then she walked away. When she returned with a potion, though, Harry had had enough. He rolled off the bed onto the other side and onto his feet, and then began backing away from the woman, not caring that he was going deeper into the Hospital Wing. He couldn’t get out the door anyway, so he just wanted some distance from the woman. She was *not* going to feed him that potion, whatever it was.

“Oh, no,” Poppy responded dejectedly. “It’s just a calming draught,” she reassured, moving forward but slowing when Harry backed up all the more quickly. “It’s not going to hurt you—just help you calm down a little.” She shook her head. “Who would do this to you?”

“An excellent question,” came a familiar voice that Harry hadn’t heard in far too long. He looked to the doorway of the Hospital and to his horror he saw what looked like Dumbledore entering, followed by Snape. He shuddered—this was a truly low blow. He *knew* Dumbledore was dead; he had watched him die, even, much to his horror. Now Snape had someone impersonating him? Hadn’t he manipulated him enough?

He heard a whine and realized that it was coming from his own throat. He backed up a little further and found his back against the wall. He slid down and hugged his knees to his chest, unable to take his eyes off of the specter of the former Headmaster. The blue eyes, so accurate, stared back at him with almost no twinkle. He was striding closer all the time, with Snape trailing behind. “Who did this to you, child?” he asked in his gentlest voice, and Harry closed his eyes and shook his head before snapping them back open nervously, his eyes on Snape.

“Has he spoken a single word?” Snape asked Poppy, and Harry shook his head frantically, for once having the right answer.

The medi-witch’s answer wasn’t *exactly* right, though. “No, he hasn’t spoken, but he wrote a few sentences on a parchment for me. He told me I wasn’t allowed to punish him for writing, and then he asked me if you were coming back, Severus, and whether I would keep you away. I can’t help but feel that there’s something more to this than just you stunning him, Severus. Maybe that you were the one he saw when you found him in that hole?”

“Maybe,” Snape replied contemplatively, his eyes fixing on Harry. Harry curled tighter, praying that the others would stay and keep him safe. “He does seem to have a very bad reaction to me—or is that to anyone? Or to males?”

Harry wished they would stop talking about him as though he wasn’t there. Just because he couldn’t talk… he glanced at Dumbledore for an instant, but couldn’t bear to keep his eyes on the dead man. This was a sick, sick joke. He glared at Snape now, fear turning to anger quickly.

“Would you like some more parchment, dear?” Poppy asked. Harry moved his head to nod, before Snape interrupted her.

“He can speak—I heard him screaming and you even heard him making noise earlier. There’s no reason he shouldn’t just talk to us.”

“How do you know he’s not deaf, Severus?” Albus asked, and Harry glanced at him once again. Madam Pomfrey cleared her throat and then smiled triumphantly when Harry’s head spun to look at her.

“He’s certainly not—I’ve seen him respond to auditory stimuli several times, including just now. Not to mention he followed my directions or at least reacted to them every time I spoke earlier, and I haven’t noticed him particularly watching my lips.” The medi-witch’s tone matched her smile.

“Very well. He’s neither deaf nor mute. That means he can speak, if he chooses to. Should we give him a crutch and remove the need?” Severus pointed out sternly.

“But if he won’t tell me anything otherwise…” Poppy protested.

“Perhaps he will be more cooperative when he’s a bit calmer,” Snape suggested, indicating the vial still in her hand. “That *is* what you were planning, wasn’t it?”

She nodded. “He seems as terrified of potions as anything—he ran when I came back with the potion, he shook when I touched him and when he saw my wand, and when I asked him to lay down he ran again. Speaking of which—Severus, did you place the ward on the door after you left?” The dark man nodded. “Thank you—he almost slipped right out of here, and who knows how long it would have taken to track him down if that had happened!”

So… That spider-web like thing had been a ward. But Snape was back and so was the Dumbledore-imposter, which presumably meant that it had been removed. If he could just get past the three who stood in his way and get to the doorway—he glanced in that direction and felt his heart sink at the distance. There was no way.

Harry had missed some of the conversation, but now Snape was moving toward him, vial of potion in hand. His breath caught in his throat and he gave a little sob of fear, his eyes fixed on the approaching form.

He risked a small glance at the two others and saw only concern on their faces. He looked back quickly at Snape and saw that he was only a step away, already starting to lower himself gracefully down to Harry’s level. He waited only a second longer before leaping past the kneeling man and running for the nearest bed.

Harry had a plan for getting over the beds, and he hoped that they would provide good cover and make it a bit harder for spells to hit him. He reached the first bed and threw himself sideways, rolling over the top of it and landing on his feet sideways. He turned himself forward even as he continued his momentum, getting himself faced forward—just in time to slam into the next bed. He tried to continue even a little bit of his momentum to roll over the bed, but he was stunned from the impact and when he had rolled off the other side he ended in a crouch between the beds.

Snape appeared at the gap between the beds an instant later, and Harry backed against the wall, breath coming faster. He shook his head furiously as Snape approached, right up until the dark man held his head still and tilted it up. “Open up,” he ordered gruffly, and fearfully Harry did as he was told. A sickly sweet potion poured into his mouth, and he swallowed quickly, shaking as he waited to feel the effects.

A hazy, pleasant feeling filled his mind and he tried to remember what he had been so concerned about. Snape helped him to his feet and guided him back to his original bed, where Madam Pomfrey met him. “Thank you, Severus.” She looked at Harry and asked him to, “Just lay back, dear, and relax. Yes, that’s right..” Then she began to run her wand over him, frowning at some points and muttering at others. She tapped her wand against each of the metal armbands, but nothing happened. Snape and ‘Dumbledore’ watched quietly, not saying anything.

Then ‘Dumbledore’ moved right up next to him and took his hand, distracting his eyes from watching Madam Pomfrey’s progress. Harry’s eyes locked on those pale blue ones and he shuddered slightly even through the calming draught. ‘He’s dead!’ his mind screamed, and he opened his mouth to say it aloud before some part of him told him that he wasn’t allowed to speak.

The supposed headmaster squeezed his hand comfortingly. “It’s alright to speak, child. We’re not going to hurt you—we’re going to help you heal. Can you tell me your name?” Harry shook his head furiously. No tricks, no tricks. He pulled his hand from Dumbledore’s suddenly and wrung his hands a few times before tugging desperately at the metal cuffs, opening his already raw fingers with his efforts.

Then suddenly Dumbledore’s hand caught his wrists more firmly, and though he tried to pull them back, the Headmaster gently pulled them apart. “Poppy, I think we may need some light restraints,” he said softly.

Harry screamed and bucked at that word, trying to pull his arms free and get off the bed. He kicked out and then someone was holding his feet as well. His mind fed him vague images of pain, horrible pain, cutting and burning followed by darkness and terror.


Harry had continued to scream and struggle, and he had no idea how much time passed before he realized that no one was touching him any longer except a hand moving through his hair in a comforting manner.

“Hush, it’s alright, calm down.. yes, that’s right, you’re safe, calm down..” He tilted his head back and saw that the source of the soft feminine voice was Madam Pomfrey, her upside down face smiling sadly at him as she continued to comb her fingers through his hair. He tried to move his legs to curl up, feeling uncomfortable flat on his back as he was, and his breath caught in his throat as he realized that he couldn’t move his legs—there were straps over his calves holding them down tightly.

Harry’s body went rigid as he waited for the pain to begin. He couldn’t see Snape, and he didn’t like this game, not at all. How could he enjoy this ‘comforting’ if he knew the pain was coming? He tossed his head irritatedly to dislodge the medi-witch’s fingers from his hair, moaning slightly as they left nonetheless.

The nurse moved around so that he could see her face right-side up and smiled another half-hearted smile. “We named you Sam, so we’d have something to call you. Unless you want to tell us your real name..?” Harry shook his head. He knew the rules. No talking. “Alright, then.. Sam it is.” She paused for a long moment, before sighing and taking a seat beside his bed. “Do you know where you are, Sam?”

Harry hesitated for a long moment. He *thought* he knew where he was, but this brought up the possibility in his mind that this was all a ruse. What if he wasn’t at Hogwarts at all? But then, he had seen all the portraits after Snape had paralyzed him and they walked through the halls, and that should have been hard to fake. And he knew the Hospital Wing intimately, having been here so many times, and it looked the same as it always had. He nodded slowly.

“Do you attend Hogwarts?” she asked next, surprised at his nod. He hesitated before shaking his head. “Then how do you know where you are?” she wondered. He sighed in frustration and looked at the ceiling. He had always looked young for his age, but this was ridiculous.

“My scans say you haven’t had much to eat in the past months.” She paused again, as if contemplating whether to ask the next question. “Do you know how you got here? Professor Snape found you in a tiny storage cupboard, he said.” Harry shuddered slightly but shook his head firmly. He didn’t know how Snape had gotten him to Hogwarts, or why he had brought him out of his quarters if not to come up with an excuse to punish Harry more.

“Alright,” she sighed. “As I was saying, you have not received enough nutrition, so we’re going to need to start you slow—nutrition potions and no solid foods, to begin with. You’ll need to gain at least 25 pounds to be considered healthy.” Harry glanced at her nervously when she mentioned ‘potions’ but his stomach grumbled greedily when he heard the word ‘food’. Madam Pomfrey laughed. “Hungry, are you? Well, I have just the thing.” She turned away and when she turned back, she had a vial of potion in one hand and a bowl in the other.

Harry arched painfully against the restraints when he saw the potion, trying to get away. He shook his head frantically, and heard a pitiful whining sound emerge from his throat again. The nurse set the bowl down on the bedside table and reached back to smooth Harry’s hair back from his face. “Shhh, it’s alright,” she said, calmly running her fingers through his hair until Harry calmed slightly. “It’s good for you; I won’t hurt you, I promise.” He shook his head slightly, but not enough to dislodge her hand. Then she stopped and her hand gently lifted his head instead. “Open up, Sam.. Just drink it and then I’ve got some food all ready for you,” she coaxed. Finally, hesitantly, he opened his mouth, knowing the consequences if he refused. The sludge-like potion filled his mouth and he swallowed quickly.

Harry had hoped that Madam Pomfrey would release him from the restraints and let him feed himself like Snape did, but instead she spooned each mouthful for him. When he had finished eating the whole thing and his stomach was at least mildly satisfied, she set the bowl down and then sat down, smiling sadly at him again. “Headmaster Dumbledore will be here in a few minutes,” Harry stiffened at this news, and she paused and gave him a measuring look, “to ask you some questions about what happened to you. First, though, I thought I should tell you some of what I’ve found about your health, and what can be done.”

She took a deep breath, and then began. “Obviously, there is the malnutrition. You have become quite underweight and, as I said, I plan to help remedy the problem through nutrient potions and by working you back up to regular food. This way we won’t overwhelm your system but you can begin eating like you should have been all along.” She gave him a disapproving look, as though he had been the one responsible for his malnourishment. Then she continued, “Otherwise, you don’t appear to have any permanent injuries—my magical scan sensed injuries in both your ankles, but they appear to have healed sufficiently. As for the scars.. I’m afraid that except for the horizontal ones around your ankles, I will be unable to heal them, as they have already been healed, albeit crudely.”

“Poppy!” ‘Dumbledore’ greeted cheerfully, causing Harry to jump and tense once again. “Is your favorite patient awake?”

“Hello, Headmaster,” the medi-witch grumbled just loudly enough to be heard, and rolled her eyes at Harry over the interruption. He actually started to smile slightly, before he remembered that the fake Dumbledore was in the room, and his eyes darted toward the door, though he couldn’t see the man yet. “Now, what Headmaster Dumbledore said brings up my last point—I think what you need perhaps most of all is rest, but you appear to be under the influence of a Wakefulness Draught. Did you make it yourself?”

Harry shook his head, shuddering slightly. Poppy frowned. “That is unfortunate. Do you know who gave it to you?” Harry nodded slowly, and then caught a bit of movement and looked past the medi-witch to see Dumbledore standing behind her, simply listening to the proceedings with a contemplative expression on his face. Harry shuddered again, half-furious and half-terrified at the idea of a fake-Dumbledore.

Madam Pomfrey was waving her hand in front of his face to get his attention again. “Sam? Sam! Are you alright?” she asked finally when he turned his attention back to her. He nodded impatiently. “Okay… Can you tell me who made it? The reason I ask is that Wakefulness Draughts are tricky things—there are many variants and the antidotes are different and all difficult to make. Our Potions Master, Professor Snape, can probably make it, but we would need to know which variant it was that you took. Otherwise, you will just have to wait until it wears off to sleep.”

Harry shook his head once, shortly, and then looked away, down the Hospital Wing so that he wouldn’t have to see either Poppy or the imposter of the former Headmaster. He heard rustling, and then the all-too-familiar sound of Dumbledore clearing his throat. “Did you like the name I gave you, Sam? Poppy seemed to prefer Jonathan, but I convinced her that Sam was much simpler.” Harry shrugged uncomfortably, refusing to look at the man.

Dumbledore sighed. “Sam, please look at me. I have a few questions that I must ask you.” His tone was slightly harder, and Harry finally looked back at him, albeit reluctantly.

“I must ask about your injuries first,” he began grimly. “I know this will be an uncomfortable subject, so I will restrict myself to necessary questions. First of all, are any of these scars from self-inflicted wounds?”

Harry hesitated and then shook his head. That was mostly true—they couldn’t see the scars underneath the metal arm bands, and it wasn’t as though he had intentionally scarred his wrists or ankles.

Dumbledore sighed. “That is both fortunate and unfortunate. Do you know who inflicted these wounds?” Harry nodded shortly but looked toward the ceiling for a long minute to compose himself before looking back. “Can you tell me—or perhaps write their name?” Harry shivered and shook his head quickly. *That* would be the ultimate in stupidity. Let Snape try to punish him for protecting him instead of giving him up as Harry was sure he expected.

Dumbledore stared down his nose through his spectacles at Harry, his expression still deadly serious and the twinkle completely lacking in his eyes. “Do you justifiably fear that you are still in danger from this person while you remain in Hogwarts?” Harry hesitated for a long moment, and before he could make a decision the supposed Headmaster ordered, “The truth, please, Sam.” At that, Harry found himself nodding timidly. That tone was one he was conditioned to take seriously, even if this wasn’t the true source.

That thought made him tear his eyes from the captivating blue ones staring down at him, and return his gaze to the ceiling. The headmaster’s voice was even harder when he asked the next question. “Is this person currently at Hogwarts?” Harry shrugged quickly, before the Headmaster could see his hesitation. After all, there was a chance that Snape was not present, and he had probably already communicated too much. He shivered violently at the thought. What was he doing answering this imposter’s questions when he *knew* that the man had to be in league with Snape?? He set his mouth in a firm line and resolved to ignore him instead.

“I told you I would restrict myself to necessary questions,” Dumbledore said sternly, “and in doing so, I expected that you would cooperate. I do not sense that you are being cooperative. Do you think this person is currently at Hogwarts?” The tone became more and more firm as the elderly man continued, and Harry almost shuddered before controlling himself. He was ignoring the imposter, he reminded himself. Ignoring.

“Mr.—Sam.” Harry thought this was one of the first times that he’d ever heard Dumbledore stutter, and felt that it only confirmed his feeling that this was an imposter. “Are you listening to me?” Harry saw movement out of the corner of his eye, and then with a gasp his head was rotated around to face Dumbledore once again. He stared into cold blue eyes and gave a little sob. Dumbledore sighed and released the spell, and Harry turned his head all the way in the opposite direction. “Sam… I can’t help you if you don’t answer my questions. From your reactions, you seem to fear that you are in danger. I only want to help assure that you are not, so that you can recover in peace.”

Harry struggled against the restraints, angry that he was trapped here listening to this imposter plead with him just so that Snape could have his ‘fun’. He shuddered, then turned his head back to glare at Dumbledore. He jerked at the restraints again, then gave him a pointed look.

Dumbledore seemed to actually consider the idea. “Poppy said you wrote to her,” he responded slowly. “If I release you from the restraints and give you some parchment and a quill, will you write to me?”

Harry hesitated for a long moment before shrugging. At least that would allow him to express his feelings, and he would get a bit of freedom, too. Just laying here with the few restraints on made him feel constrained, and he kept waiting for the sharp bite of a blade to pierce his flesh again. Dumbledore in turn hesitated for a moment before standing. “Very well. Accio Parchment, Accio Self-Inking Quill,” he called out, and the requested items sprang into the air from a surface Harry couldn’t see and practically leapt into the imposter’s hands. Dumbledore set them on the bedside table, then moved closer and carefully removed the restraints.

Harry sat up immediately and scooted back toward the wall, away from the man. He stopped himself from running, though—he was sure they had warded the doorway again and there was no point in running when he had the chance to share his thoughts. He took the parchment and quill eagerly from the elder man, though he took care not to touch him. Then he began to scrawl a message before Dumbledore even asked a question.

‘I know you’re not Dumbledore. You’re working with Snape.’ Then Harry angrily passed the parchment to the other man, and kept the quill. He clenched it tightly, but not tightly enough to break it, as he watched the older man’s blue eyes run over the message and then look up at him in surprise.

“I assure you that I am Headmaster Dumbledore; Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, to be exact. And I do indeed work with Professor Snape, as his colleague and his employer. However, I sense that there is something more to your… accusation. Would you care to clarify?” Harry’s glare only darkened as the old man insisted that he was someone who was dead. He snatched the outstretched parchment and wrote beneath his previous scrawl.

‘I’m not stupid. Albus Dumbledore is dead; I saw him die. Snape can’t punish me for talking.’ Then he held the parchment out, slightly calmer after writing all that out, and waited for a reaction.

Dumbledore looked at the parchment, then looked up at Harry. Then he looked down at the parchment again, before looking up with a sigh. “If you did see Albus Dumbledore die, then something most unusual is occurring, for I am he. As for the latter..” The man’s expression suddenly darkened. “Are you implying that Snape was in part responsible for your current condition? That this was some sort of ‘punishment’?”

Emboldened by the fact that he wasn’t yet being punished, Harry rocked forward and snatched the parchment from Dumbledore’s hand before leaning back to write another message. ‘I’m not implying anything. I’m not going to be punished.’ He contemplated crumpling the parchment and throwing it at the older wizard, before thinking better of that plan. No need to anger the man. He slid the parchment across the bed instead.

If Dumbledore’s face was any indication, his darkening mood would have spawned a severe storm if it could have. He stood up suddenly, causing Harry to jerk back. “I will be back,” he said curtly, and then he strode suddenly from the room, an aura of power surrounding him. Harry hugged his knees, watching the door worriedly. Was he going to get Snape? Had Harry somehow made a mistake despite all his care?

Dumbledore had left and Madam Pomfrey was still in her office, leaving Harry alone in the Hospital Wing, unable to go to sleep because of the Wakefulness Draught. He rocked back and forth nervously, and began to tug and pull and scratch at the metal arm bands, not evening noticing that his fingers were raw and bleeding. Time passed interminably slowly, and his nervousness only increased with each passing minute. He didn’t even realize that his attempts to remove the arm bands were becoming frantic until gentle but firm hands closed over his hands and pulled them apart. When he recognized the hands, he shrieked in panic and kicked out violently at the slender figure now standing next to the bed.

Snape had evidently not expected this reaction and released Harry’s hands after the first two blows from Harry’s panicked form. Harry scooted back and off the bed, backing up against the next bed and staring wide-eyed at Snape, breathing hard and fast. Only after he had escaped from Snape did he realize how bad his panicked response had been. Snape always told him not to fight; he had finally made the mistake that Snape had been waiting for. He gave a choking sob and inched out toward the open aisle, looking for an escape.

Snape’s expression started out shocked and slightly pained; then it moved to angry; now it seemed to rest on determined. Snape gracefully moved around the bed and made his way toward Harry, who had made it to the aisle and was now backing away as fast as Snape approached.

“Sam,” Snape spoke with an expression of distaste, which he wiped from his face a moment later. “I’m not going to hurt you. I don’t know who did, but I’m only here to help.” Harry shook his head, not willing to be convinced. This was a trick to get him to cooperate until they had him in the dungeons; then he would have to pay the price. “Didn’t I rescue you from that storage cupboard?” Snape’s voice sounded a bit more desperate now.

You *put* me in that hole!! Harry’s mental voice screamed back, and he continued to back away from Snape’s still advancing figure—right into the back wall. He nearly screamed in panic before he turned his body and began moving along the wall toward the corner, still facing Snape. He couldn’t take his eyes off the man, or who knew what he would do? Harry found it somewhat miraculous that he hadn’t been strung up to the ceiling yet, before he remembered that Snape was trying to get him to cooperate for some reason. He shook his head again, and then stiffened in pure terror and he hit another wall and realized that he was backed entirely into the corner, Snape only feet away from him.

Where was Dumbledore?! Harry’s eyes frantically sought out the old man, who sat watching from the other side of the room, before he remembered that that was *not* Albus Dumbledore and that there was no one to save him. No one to save him… He slid down the wall, shaking violently, unable to look at Snape, waiting for the first flash of pain.

Snape was kneeling down; Harry tried not to see but he couldn’t close his eyes. He was grasping Harry’s hands, and Harry half-heartedly tried to pull them back, his eyes glazed over in panic. He was staring at his own hands, now, watching them be pulled away from his body. When he saw the wand, though, he began to struggle frantically. One of his hands pulled free, and he held it protectively to his chest, curling over slightly to protect it. Snape’s hand only tightened further on the remaining hand, and Harry shrieked in anticipated pain as the wand was waved.

No pain came, and Harry blinked and stopped shrieking. Snape released his hand with a sigh, and Harry hugged it back to himself. The pain isn’t always obvious at first, his mind reminded him, and he struggled viciously against Snape as he pulled Harry’s other hand away from his chest and cast a spell on it as well. He screamed again as the wand waved and then he clenched both hands together, hugging them tightly to himself and rocking slightly, staring at the point where Snape’s knees had been. Had been, because he had stood to his feet and he was backing away, slowly. He left even Harry’s peripheral vision and Harry heard murmuring from halfway across the Hospital Wing, but didn’t bother to look up. He was waiting, terrified, for the pain to come, for Snape’s plan to come clear. What had he done to Harry’s hands?!

A smaller figure was approaching, Harry saw through vision clouded by wet eyes. When the figure moved close to him, he cowered back into the corner with a whimper, even though he knew it wasn’t Snape. They had let Snape come back, had given him more time with Harry, even after Harry had begged and pleaded as much as he could without exposing himself. Why, why would they do this to him??

A hand ran through his hair in a calming motion, and he shivered and fought the impulse to relax. He had to stay alert; Snape was going to hurt him! The feeling was so comforting, though, and he was so tired, and there was no pain yet. A soft voice was speaking to him, a continuous string of syllables that his mind wasn’t able to comprehend yet but that wrapped him in warmth nonetheless. He relaxed slightly, and then slightly more, a little of the panic-induced haze clearing from his mind.

“Shh, hush… That’s a dear, just relax… That’s right, you’re doing it! Just calm down… take a deep breath.. now let it out.. And another.. That’s it! Slow, deep breaths.. There’s nothing to worry about; you’re safe here..” Harry followed the directions, and the haze cleared even further. “Sam? Sam? Can you look at me? Look at my face,” the voice said next, and he realized that he was Sam. He looked up slowly from the point he had been staring at on the floor, and into Madam Pomfrey’s concerned eyes. A smile sprang onto her lips as he finally met her gaze. “There you are!” she exclaimed, relieved. “We thought we’d lost you, for a moment there.”

Harry wrinkled his brow, opening his mouth for a moment to ask what she meant before closing it in realization. No talking. She looked slightly disappointed, but wiped it from her face quickly. “You panicked quite spectacularly, Sam. And, Sam.. I want to show you something. Do you remember what you did to your hands?”

What he did to his hands? *Harry* hadn’t done anything to his hands; *Snape* had done something to his hands. But then, grasping for memory, he remembered pain in his fingers, getting worse as he tore more and more at the unforgiving metal of the arm bands. Some very deeply buried part of him had known that he was tearing them open, that his hands would be bloody, but he hadn’t cared. The arm bands had to come off, because beneath them laid his only escape—the only one that might ever work. Snape had proven that he would follow him even up here.

“Sam.. Sam!” Harry blinked and refocused on Madam Pomfrey’s face, which looked worried. “Sam, do you remember?” He nodded slowly. Gently, she reached forward and grasped Harry’s hands, pulling a whimper from him, and peeled them apart with care. “Look at them now, Sam.” He blinked and then looked down at his hands. They were intact, perfectly intact. The ‘S’-shaped scars were still there on his palms, and he curled his hands reflexively to hide them and the remembered pain from himself. The important thing, though, was that his fingertips were not broken or bloody at all. He stared in disbelief, unable to believe that Snape had cornered him just to heal him.

Gently the medi-witch turned Harry’s hands over so they were palms down, and began to massage them gently. Quietly, she said, “Professor Snape wanted to show you that not only was he not the one to hurt you, but he is sorry you were hurt and wants to help.” Harry tensed at the proclamation of Snape’s innocence. “Alright, alright,” Madam Pomfrey said quickly when she sensed the tension. “You don’t have to believe it right away, just… give him a chance? I’ll be right here; he won’t hurt you.”

It came down to how much he trusted the medi-witch, he knew. Snape *hadn’t* hurt him yet while she was present. Did that mean that her presence was restraining him, or only that he was restraining himself? Was he biding his time in a deliberate attempt to get Harry to trust Poppy and eventually him? Harry shivered, not liking to think about it. He *wanted* to trust her; he really did. He looked up from his hands, which she was still gently massaging, and into her warm grey eyes. He stared as deeply as he could, and saw no sign of the malice that showed so clearly in Snape’s eyes whenever he was plotting Harry’s pain. Still, Harry couldn’t make the decision to trust.

Sensing his indecision, she switched from massaging his hands to squeezing them reassuringly. Then she began to stand slowly, drawing him up with her. For a brief moment Harry hesitated, refusing to follow her lead, but then he let himself be drawn up out of his crouched position, until he was standing shakily. “Let’s get you back to your bed,” Madam Pomfrey said warmly, encouragingly. She clucked her tongue and shook her head in mild disapproval. “You’ve exhausted yourself.. You’re not supposed to exert yourself, when you’ve taken a Wakefulness Draught, for just this reason,” she lectured in a tone that Harry was well-used to. He was too tired to protest as he allowed himself to be guided back to his bed. All he wanted to do was rest; as soon as he was on the bed he curled up on his side, and Madam Pomfrey pulled a blanket over him, making no mention of restraints.

Harry tried to close his eyes, but the potion wouldn’t let him do more than blink. He gave a frustrated little sob, moving his hands from under the blanket in order to rub irritatedly at his moist eyes. When he took his hands away, he suddenly saw a black robe right in front of him. He followed it upward and stiffened when his eyes reached Snape’s face, even if it was impassive and not angry or malicious looking at the moment.

He scooted back toward the other side of the bed, contemplating running again, until he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder. Jumping, he jerked his head around to find Madam Pomfrey behind him. She smiled comfortingly. “It’s okay, Sam.. I’m right here. Professor Snape just has something he wants to say to you.”

“Sam,” Snape began, his normally smooth tone unnaturally stiff. “I want you to know that I will never harm you or ‘punish’ you, for anything.” He hesitated, then asked, “Do you understand?”

Harry stared at him, eyes wide. Someone must have a lot of control over him, to force him to say that. Harry knew he would never make a promise like that, even if he also knew that just because he had said such a thing didn’t mean that he wouldn’t immediately turn back on it if he ever got Harry in the dungeons again. He shrugged in response to the question, unsure how else to answer.

“’Sam,’” he began again uncomfortably, “would you.. would you tell me your real name? Out loud?” Harry stared at him for another long moment, his eyes still wide, and then shook his head quickly, almost frantically. He scooted back a little further, against Madam Pomfrey’s hand on his shoulder. He was safe, he tried to tell himself, but with Snape right in front of him trying to trick him into speaking aloud, it was hard to believe. He shook his head again. He was *not* being tricked.

Snape sighed as though in disappointment, and looked over Harry’s head. “I tried,” he said in a defeated tone. Then after another moment of silent communication between the two, Snape turned on his heels and stalked from the room.

Harry was surprised to find that the shaking started after Snape had left, this time. It was as though he could feel the salt water in his lungs, could feel his skin being peeled open, as though the walls—he tried to focus on the hand on the shoulder, the only thing anchoring him to now. As if in response, Poppy’s hand tightened reassuringly on his shoulder, making it even easier for him to separate himself from the nightmarish feelings rising up in him.

The medi-witch sighed, and Harry rolled slowly so that he could see her face. She looked almost as drained as he felt. He pointed to her and then pantomimed sleeping before pointing to her again. She shook her head, a small, fond smile on her face. “No sir, Sam. If you’re staying up all night, then I am. And since we still don’t know how to brew the antidote, I’m afraid you are going to be up all night.” Her eyes were sad as she said this.

Harry shrugged uncomfortably. He *did* want to sleep, but he couldn’t. In comparison to the memories of pain and terror that he had, though, this was positively boring. Harry rolled onto his back languidly to stare at the ceiling.

“Oh!” Madam Pomfrey exclaimed, and he looked over to see her with a mischievous grin on her face. “Let’s play Boris the Muggle’s Suitcase! I have a copy in the back room for when children visit.” She bustled away, apparently not noticing Harry’s perplexed expression.

She noticed it when she came back, though. “Oh… are you Muggle-born, dear?” Harry frowned and half-shrugged, shaking his head. He couldn’t explain his entire situation to the woman, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to. Part of him enjoyed being Sam, completely unknown, just as he had enjoyed being a Muggle after defeating Voldemort. It wasn’t that he hated magic, he just hated the attention that the Magical world always gave him.

“But.. surely you’ve played Boris before, if you’re not Muggle-born! Or… maybe your parents were half- and half-?” Harry nodded hesitantly, deciding that was the best explanation. “Well, then, I’ll just have to teach you!”

Boris the Muggle’s Suitcase was the most bizarre game that Harry had ever seen. Each of them had a suitcase that had four legs and trotted around the board on command. They would spin a spinner and it would land on a number, and then the suitcase would trot along the path before having items added or subtracted based on the space that it stopped on. Sometimes Harry even got to choose which direction to go. The goal was to make sure that Boris had everything he needed when he got wherever he was going, but many of the items were bizarre, at least for a Muggle—things like parchment and quills and ink, or even a Portkey! Harry snorted at the idea of a Muggle actually finding these things in his suitcase, and the medi-witch beamed.

After they finished the game, Madam Pomfrey began to talk to Harry about random things. She told him about her niece and nephew and their exploits at a Wizarding primary school. As she told story after story, her pauses between new stories became longer and longer, until Harry looked away from the ceiling to smile at her form lying asleep in the chair where she had been sitting. He wished he could rearrange her, as her neck was going to be sore from the position, but he was happy that *someone* could sleep.

Even though he knew that Poppy wanted him to stay in bed, he couldn’t stand to stare at the ceiling or laying on his side staring at nothing when he knew he would never sleep. Finally, he climbed out of bed and silently tiptoed to the large windows at the end of the ward, where he sat on another bed and stared out into the darkness, looking for any movement.


Snape had hurried down to the dungeons as soon as he could, seeing that the boy was *not* having a positive reaction to him. He and Dumbledore had exchanged glances after he had gone into a full-blown attack at the mention of restraints, and once he had been secured so that he would not harm himself or Poppy, they had silently agreed to give her a chance to calm him down, as he didn’t seem happy with either of them.

Thus, he was in the middle of brewing another nutrition potion (which was complicated but not overly time-consuming) when the Headmaster suddenly burst into his lab, in one of the highest towering furies that Severus had ever seen. He immediately vanished the potion, realizing it as a lost cause, and stared wide-eyed at the approaching old man, who was no less dangerous for his age.

“Severus, please tell me that you have had *nothing* to do with the condition in which Sam finds himself,” the Headmaster half-ordered and half-pleaded. Snape’s eyes widened further and he shook his head quickly.

“No, Albus, never,” he said quickly, shaking his head. Why would Dumbledore doubt him now, after so many years of trusting him implicitly since he voluntarily turned against Voldemort? Dumbledore looked deep into his eyes, and he stared back nervously, not blinking, allowing the old man to dig deep into his mind to assure himself that the truth was being told. Finally the headmaster relaxed, the anger draining out of him quickly.

“Thank goodness. He said some things…” Dumbledore began wearily before trailing off.

“He spoke?!” Snape questioned, surprised. The boy seemed to be terrified at the idea of talking aloud; or maybe that was only in his presence?

But the headmaster was shaking his head slowly. “No, alas, he still refuses to speak aloud. However, he will at times answer by nodding or shaking his head, and he consented to write several things with a quill and parchment when I insisted that he answer.” Dumbledore frowned. “The boy is extremely confused. He claimed several times that I was not myself, that I was in fact dead, and also insisted that I was in league with you. His statements regarding you were.. disturbing, at the least.” His hand tightened on a piece of parchment, wrinkling it slightly.

“May I see?” Snape asked tentatively. The headmaster nodded after an instant of hesitation, and passed him a parchment with three messages messily scrawled across it.

‘I know you’re not Dumbledore. You’re working with Snape.’
‘I’m not stupid. Albus Dumbledore is dead; I saw him die. Snape can’t punish me for talking.’
‘I’m not implying anything. I’m not going to be punished.’

Snape stared at the strange text for a long moment before looking, perplexed. “What did you ask him?”

Dumbledore sighed. “He wrote the first message without prodding as soon as I gave him parchment and quill, but I had been pressing him to answer a question of whether or not he feared that the person who had harmed him was within Hogwarts. He never answered the question straightforwardly, but as you can see, he appears to have been convinced that he will be ‘punished’ if he tells the truth—or indeed talks, for that matter.”

“And that you are dead, for that matter,” Snape added slowly. He was used to brainstorming sessions with the headmaster in which he spoke his thoughts in order to help Albus organize his own. “What are you going to do?”

Dumbledore sighed. “I don’t know, Severus. That is a very damaged boy that we have up there.” He paused for a long moment and then searched Snape’s eyes again, not Legilimizing him this time but merely looking. “I know you did not have anything to do with his condition, Severus, but… you never *would* do anything like this, right?” Snape had never heard Dumbledore plead for reassurance this way; he was always the solid rock that everyone else could look to for assurance. “Not even, say, with Harry?”

Having seen the mess that was the boy in the Hospital Wing, Snape’s lips actually parted in a small gasp before he recovered himself. “No, Albus,” he breathed, desperate to know that the headmaster believed him. “No, I could never… I *left* Voldemort, Albus, you of all people know that..”

“I do, Severus,” the older man replied softly. “I know you left him.. and yet, I cannot help but admit that there is a part of you that enjoys seeing people who you think deserve suffering get what they deserve. Can you honestly say that you would *never* deliberately hurt anyone, even someone who you hated and felt fully deserved it? Like, for instance, Harry?” Though Albus was clearly telegraphing his sorrow at even feeling the need to bring this issue up, his words cut deep into Snape. Nonetheless, part of him was furious at the second mention of Potter in such a short period; Albus’ obsession with the boy inevitably evoked this feeling of furious jealousy in him.

“You see..” Albus insisted, pressing further before he could even open his mouth to speak. “Imagine if I were gone, and Harry were an adult—if you were able to take full control over him, for some reason, would you be capable of ‘breaking’ him in order to alleviate this anger and jealousy that you feel?”

Severus wanted to scream an immediate denial—he could never carve a child’s skin apart, starve him, stuff him in a storage cupboard, or do any of the other things that had doubtless been done to assure that the boy might never speak aloud again. Why would Albus ask him such a thing?! He forced himself to pause, though, like he knew the headmaster expected, and was horrified to feel a tiny, almost entirely buried feeling of satisfaction at the idea of ‘breaking’ Potter so that he knew who was the better of the two. A much larger part of himself, though, screamed in pain at the look in the Headmaster’s eyes. “No, Albus, no,” he gasped. “What can I do to prove it to you? How can I show you?” He wanted to show the headmaster, but he also wanted to prove to himself that he could never—that he *would* never—deliberately cause someone to suffer in that way.

Albus smiled sadly, but his eyes shown with relief at that. “You have, partly, my child.. I can hear the pain in your voice at the idea. But…”

“But what?” Snape replied hesitantly, unsure what Dumbledore had in mind but sure that there was something.

The older man sighed. “There is a very injured boy up there in the Hospital Wing, Severus, who is terrified of you,” he began sadly. “If you really want to show me—to show both of us—that you are not the man who would do that, you could give him a great deal of help in recovering.” Albus stared into his eyes searchingly.

Severus cringed. He didn’t want to care; he wanted nothing more than to prepare the potions that Poppy needed to heal him as best he could be, and then wash his hands of the matter. “I—“ he started, and then stopped again, hanging his head as he struggled internally.

“You needn’t tell *me* your answer, Severus,” Albus replied softly. “If you decide to help, you can tell it to Sam, who cannot even tell us his name for fear of being punished. You can tell him that he’s not going to be punished, not by you, and help Poppy to help him in more ways than just with Potions..”

Snape nodded slowly, still struggling with the idea. “I’m going to go back up to the Hospital Wing to check on young Sam,” Dumbledore said finally. “I’m afraid I left in quite an abrupt manner, and I’m worried about the reaction he might have had.” Sighing, Snape nodded again and followed, gaining him a happier smile from the headmaster. He could hardly appreciate it, though, as his mind was trapped on thinking what *he* could do for that boy.

When they entered the Hospital Wing, he heard Albus gasp and glanced up quickly. The boy was sitting on the bed back against the wall, curled up tightly and rocking slightly. What was horrifying, though, was that he was tearing at the metal cuffs around his wrists that they had so far been unable to remove—and the only things he was tearing were his already bloodied fingers.

Snape glanced at the older man, but he was just watching, not *doing* anything. Almost without thinking about it, Snape stepped forward and gently but firmly grasped the boy’s hands and pulled them apart, preventing him from doing further harm to himself. His first goal had just been to stop the boy from causing more damage, but now he wanted to heal him. Maybe that could be a way he could help him like Albus had said?

Almost as soon as he took the boy’s hands, though, he heard a shriek and then he was being kicked, surprisingly strongly considering the child’s small, undernourished frame. He let go of the hands instinctively and the boy was off the other side of the bed and already backed against the next bed.

Snape stared at him. The child was breathing hard and staring at him wide-eyed, his expression horrified. For an instant Snape felt anger flash through him; the boy *should* be horrified, for attacking him when he was only trying to help. Then he remembered that that was what he was here for—to help. And that meant even if the child was terrified of him at first. He moved quickly around the side of the bed and began to move toward the boy, who had given a panicked sob and moved out into the aisle as well.

“Sam,” he started, and then realized that his distaste for the false name was evident in his voice and paused to remodulate, “I’m not going to hurt you.” He didn’t know what else he should say; he wasn’t usually required to comfort children. “I don’t know who did, but I’m only here to help,” he tried. The boy shook his head, obviously not convinced. “Didn’t I rescue you from the cupboard?” He winced inwardly at how much it sounded like he was pleading with the boy.

This didn’t seem to help. In fact, Snape could have sworn that he saw a flash of anger cross the boy’s face before it was replaced once again with terror. He continued to follow the boy, slowly trying to approach him even as the child backed away—right into the wall. Then he began to back away along the wall, moving toward the corner. The boy stiffened noticeably when he bumped into the other wall and presumably realized that he was trapped.

For the first time, the boy’s eyes left his own. He followed his glance and saw Albus standing on the other side of the Hospital Wing, looking worried but encouraging nonetheless. Then Snape turned his attention back to the boy, who was sliding down the wall, pale as a ghost and shaking violently. Snape moved as slowly and unthreateningly as he could as he approached and knelt down in front of the child. The boy’s eyes were flitting around but staring generally at the floor, insistent on not looking at him.

Reaching forward, Severus took the boy’s hands in one of his own. The boy feebly attempted to pull his hands back, to disallow him from pulling them away from his body, but it was a simple matter to keep his hold on them.

Severus removed his wand from his holster, and suddenly the boy’s feeble efforts trebled into something worth contending with. He actually pulled one hand free, but Snape tightened his hold on the other firmly, realizing that this was actually better. When he waved his wand to heal the raw wounds, he had to concentrate carefully to not be distracted by the boy’s sudden shriek.

Snape kept his hold on the hand for another instant, examining it to be sure he had done no harm. The spell was not intended to hurt, and the boy’s shrieking had subsided, even if it had sounded like he was in agony when Snape had first begun to wave the wand. He released the healed hand and watched as it was pulled quickly to the boy’s chest. Then he reached out and firmly pulled the other, still bloody hand away from his chest, against the furious struggling of the child. Surely he could see that his hand had not had any harm done to it? Snape sighed and waved his wand again to heal the remaining wounds, wincing as the boy shrieked again.

Obviously his presence was not helping at the moment. The boy was clenching his hands to his chest and rocking, much paler than he had been before on the bed. Snape stood quickly to his feet and backed away, hoping to see the boy recover once he was not within sight. To his dismay, the child still seemed frantic.

“That was a fine first effort, Severus,” Albus told him quietly as they watched Madam Pomfrey move past them, bustling toward the disturbed boy in her most maternal mode. Snape would normally have straightened at the proud tone in his mentor’s voice, but all he could feel was defeat.

Snape sighed heavily. “I didn’t help, Albus; I only terrified him further.”

“Perhaps, but… watch, for a few more minutes,” the headmaster replied cryptically.

They could not hear what the medi-witch said to her patient, but it was clear that he was calming slightly under her ministrations. Snape raised an eyebrow when she managed to get the boy to relinquish his hands to her with minimal protest. The child stared blankly for a long minute before seemed to suddenly *see* his hands and realize what had happened, and he stared in disbelief. Snape suppressed a snort; the boy hadn’t even realized until he’d been told what had been done.

Severus was nonetheless impressed when she managed to keep her hold on his hands without panicking him by massaging his hands. This seemed to have a mild calming effect on the boy, though whatever they were discussing quietly was creating tension as well. Finally, she squeezed his hands and pulled him to his feet. Snape stepped to the side where the boy’s flitting eyes were less likely to see him, and then followed quietly as he could, watching the woman fuss over the child, bundling him toward the bed and then covering him up with care when she had. Snape advanced to the foot of the bed, where Sam couldn’t see him but he could see the boy and Poppy.

Poppy made eye contact with Snape and he nodded to the tired form. She looked hesitant for a moment, before she nodded. Having permission to talk to the child, Snape moved around in front of him and found the boy rubbing his eyes with his now-healthy hands. The tiny curled up form looked like nothing more than a very large five-year-old when he did that. Then the child took his hands away from his eyes and stiffened when he saw Snape.

Sam scooted back across the bed, his eyes fixed on Severus, but Snape was thankful to see him stopped by a gentle hand on his shoulder from Poppy, who was still behind him in an act of astounding foresight. She smiled at Snape briefly and then said, “It’s okay, Sam.. I’m right here. Professor Snape just has something he wants to say to you.” The boy’s head turned back around to look right at him, and Severus took a deep breath.

“Sam,” he started, despite the fact that the name still sounded odd in his mouth, especially when he knew that it was not the boy’s true name. “I want you to know that I will never harm you or ‘punish’ you, for anything.” He waited, but the boy just stared at him. “Do you understand?” Another long stare, this time punctuated by a very small shrug. The boy seemed to be trying to decide what response would be okay to make.

Snape stared down at him, wondering how he could get the point across to the boy. Then he thought of something. “’Sam’,” he asked, “would you.. would you tell me your real name?” He cringed inwardly at his stutter, and then realized he needed to add something, “Out loud?”

The child stared at him, and Severus hoped that he was actually considering the request. The boy’s response, though, was to shake his head back and forth vehemently, and then to scoot back further toward Madam Pomfrey and away from himself. The boy then shook his head *again*, as though unsure whether his first response had gotten across.

Snape sighed and glanced over the boy’s prone form to Madam Pomfrey. “I tried,” he said disappointedly, and though she smiled sadly and tilted her head in commendation to his efforts, he swept from the room cursing himself for a fool for even trying.

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