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

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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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