I just want to say thank you so much for reading this far. I appreciate it so much yay :D

Chapter 3

The hospital wing was quiet, dark in those late hours as James arrived. Apprehension as he moved forward beneath his invisibility clock. His eyes drifting toward the clock above the office door by which Madman Pomfrey occupied. Stating with its ever moving hands that it was two forty three, James shuddered. He couldn't help but look at the second hand as it kept moving and moving. Time was so important, so fragile, so necessary. Everything depended upon it. It was the difference between life and death. It was the difference between saving and losing someone that James only ever considered an object of ridicule.

James looked, with a sudden jolt at that thought, down the ward toward that very victim. Severus Snape was waking.

He looked so confused as his being stirred. A cough, a horrific cough shaking James's being as well as Snape's own. James could hear the air chocked in his lungs unable to escape through his damaged windpipe. But Snape's eyes were focusing. Moving toward the ceiling, toward the bedside table then toward the bed he lay upon. But for every action, every glance, it felt like a claw digging deep into James's chest. Scoring marks because Snape; he looked so very inhumanly fragile.

Snape's shaky hand, moving up toward his throat. And as he did this, as he touched the marks made by that rope; his face had broken from the barrier, the mask, the sneer, the independence, the hatred. And when that barrier left, when it was gone from the existence of his being, all that was left was a sight so disturbing to that happy, well-loved James Potter.

Snape was broken. There was so much shattering pain. Pain James never thought possible. Never thought could be true. Soul disturbing pain. And at that moment, James finally understood why Snape had tried to take that pain away.

"Why?" James looked up as Snape spoke. So shaken that word, so wrong. No human should ever have to say that word as Snape said it. "Oh my god no. Please, fuck, no. Why am I fucking here? No please I… no… oh my fucking god no…" But the rest of Severus Snape's words were lost in the gut wrenching, powerful but so true, tears. It was like he was wounded but so harrowingly worse, because the deep bleeding wounds were not physical.

Then Snape leapt up. Too fast. He fell crashing to the floor. James felt sickened at the sound that Snape's body made on the hard cold stone floor. Snape was so weak, he had to stay in bed.

Snape clawing himself up. Throwing up on the floor. Tears still tortured his face. His whole being disturbed by that pain. Then so quickly. So very quickly. He grabbed a pair of scissors on the bedside table next to him and stabbed into his arm.

"Oh my god!"

Snape's head shot up at the sound of James's cry. The two boys stood, so still in the hospital ward. But the blood trailing off Severus's arm was growing thicker and redder by every second.

As James let the cloak fall from his frame Snape's frame froze. His face turning, a jolted wheel of thought process, from fear to panic but finally landing upon rage.

His teeth bared, hints of a sneer, he almost clawed at his face to dispose of the tears. James stared at the sudden construction of a mask before him, the skill in which it was so quickly placed. The barrier seemed so ridged, so immobile. Yet so very distant from what was beneath.

Or was it? A mask fuelled by hatred yet the hatred fuelled by pain. A hatred from his life, from the Marauders but also a hatred fuelled by his own self-loathing. This agony contained in an outward seal of controlled simmering hostility.

"Potter! What a pleasant surprise to be greeted at such a moment by your arrogant and self-loving presence!" Snape's words almost spat from his mouth as James watched him desperately hide the torment that burned within him.

"Snape! Shut up you need help with your arm!"

"Oh, want to help me stab it in a little further?" Snape sneered offering said arm. James felt sick to look.

"Are you seriously hiding behind this mask thing you put on now of all times?"

"I'm only offering you to take some of the credit in killing me."

"Snape! I found you! I took you here! If I was a minute later you'd be fucking dead! I saved you're fucking life!"

Something flashed beneath those dark eyes but soon obscured by a far more profound sneer. "Being the hero are we Potter?"

James was silent, shocked by not just his words but this attitude. As if this meant nothing. As if trying to hang yourself or stab scissors into your arm was something of a norm.

"Snape this is fucked up! This is seriously fucked up! It's like you aren't even feeling! Oh my god there's so much blood!"

The blood just kept dripping and dripping. A pool forming like a sick lake, so richly crimson, and it dripped from his loose fingers, from the blood covering his arm like some kind of harrowing glove.

That blood was so real. How ever Snape tried to barricade himself with controlled sneers and insults, it did not take the fact now presented before James. Snape was human. The blood cloaking his arm acting as a more vivid reality to this human being that stood before James.

"Madam Pomfrey!" James shouted. Turning his head he stormed to the office door smashing it with his fist. "Madam Pomfrey! Emergency!"

A sound behind James. "Expelliarmus!"

The wand from Snape's hand flew across the ward from James's spell. "Accio wand!" James held out his hand catching Snape's wand. He then turned. Staring, eyes focused only on Snape. "You will not die!"

Madam Pomfrey tore out of the office, her eyes meeting with Snape's.

James watched in silence as Madam Pomfrey dealt with Snape. Snape never looked at either in the room. Just stared, eyes alive with an angry venom looking toward the ceiling.

"I will get a sleeping draught for you Mr Snape. You will be able then to have a good restful sleep without… getting carried away." Snape's eyes flashed at Madam Pomfrey's words. For once James agreed with Snape. Trying to end your life was more than just 'getting carried away'. A fury began within James from that moment.

And as she left, Snape for the first time since she entered, looked up through his dark greasy hair toward James Potter before him. A face of deepest hatred.

"You Potter!" Spitting, his face so disfigured from the hate. "You pompous, glory loving Gryffindor! You are not a hero!" He had risen from his bed. Striding forward. His face seeming with anger.

Snape reached James, his face glowering as he stood inches in front of the others features. James stood taller, prouder, looking toward the other. "You should be fucking thankful."

And that was when Severus Snape punched James Potter.