Chapter 20 – Bedlam
Late in that same afternoon, Minerva found herself standing in the Gryffindor common room—or what could also laughingly be referred to as "bedlam"—shortly after the occurrence of the "most spectacular thing we've ever seen," according to the Weasley twins, whom she had passed by in the hallway, carrying a dreadful looking Neville Longbottom between them, apparently on their way to the infirmary.
Apparently, the Weasleys had witnessed the majority of the event, to the exclusion of the other students, minus the unfortunate Longbottom, who had been knocked out by the time they'd gotten involved.
"We heard this crashing sound, and so we all ran up to look, you know?" Percy said, trying to keep his excitement under control now in the presence of their head of house.
"Go on," she said, caught somewhere between fearful and annoyed that Severus Snape been involved in the internal affairs of her house.
"And there he was—," Percy said, before she cut him off in annoyance.
"There who was, Mr. Weasley?" She asked, irritated at his ambiguous description.
"Oh, Professor Snape o' course!" He answered with awe still evident on his freckled face.
"Go on please." She said tersely.
"Well he—Professor Snape—was up straddling the headboard and he was leaning out so far, I thought that he was certainly done for, you know ma'am?" He looked brightly up at her, before continuing on, obviously not expecting her to respond.
"And he yelled 'ACCIO HARRY POTTER,' in this great big booming voice. His eyes were all wild too, ma'am. I mean, I don't mean any disrespect, but he looked rather, ah, intense, I'd say." He told her excitedly, nodding his head so vigorously she feared he might lose it before getting to the end of the story.
"And?" She asked calmly.
"Well, then nothing happened, not at first anyways. We were all holding our breaths, weren't we Gin?" He said, glancing at his sister, who nodded at him in agreement.
Minerva noticed that her small face was rather white with near shock, and thought that it might be best for her to lie down after this was all said and done. She would tell her so at the end of the conversation, provided she ever reached such a thing.
"And then Professor Snape, well he looked out and his face brightened up a bit and we figured that meant that the spell was working. We heard him whisper another spell, I think it was a cushioning spell of some sort, personally, and then we saw Harry fly into him from outside the window. He hit Professor Snape in the chest hard enough to knock them both backwards, but luckily the bed broke their fall, unlike with Neville." Percy stopped, smiling up at her proudly.
"That's the account then?" She asked him, trying to keep the weariness from being too evident in her voice.
"Yes ma'am," he said, starting to nod his vigorously once more.
She had to give him an assignment before he drove her completely nuts. Quickly, she gave him a rundown of the usual inter-house loyalty, etc. speech, and then instructed him not to let the rumors fly too much around the common room.
Like he can even possibly hope to do anything against rumors of this caliber, she thought dourly.
On her way out, she spoke delicately with the youngest Weasley, mentioning her concern to the girl at having witnessed such an emotionally fraught thing. She pointed out that it would not be remiss for the young girl to go to sleep a bit earlier that evening.
The girl nodded once, obviously having picked up on Minerva's growing annoyance with her older brother's idiotic head waggling.
She was turning to go when a small hand touched her arm.
Minerva turned to see the child standing and looking expectantly up at her.
"Child, is there something else you wish to say?" She asked gently.
"Percy didn't mention the bit at the end," the girl said, nearly whispering.
"Oh?"
"After Professor Snape stood up, and he had Harry in his arms, he leaned his head down and said something like, 'see? I told you I'd protect you,' or something like that. He said it really quietly, but Harry knew what he was talking about, 'cause he nodded real seriously afterwards." She said, looking altogether far too grave for the eleven year old that she was.
"Thank for telling me this Ginny," she said, remembering her name at the last second and adding it for emphasis.
The child nodded solemnly once more and then turned around, presumably heading to her bed to do as her head of house had instructed.
Minerva found herself watching the child for a moment longer than necessary, before turning around and exiting the portrait hole carefully.
…
"Need I tell you that you are one of my most frequently reoccurring patients, Mr. Potter?" Poppy said upon seeing a shivering and bloodied boy in the arms of Severus upon their simultaneous exit from the floo.
It worried her that he did not respond to her words, but instead continued to shiver and stare steadily up into the face of the man whose arms were still wrapped tightly around him, even now.
"Severus?" She asked the unusually pale faced man who was currently heading towards the bed in the far corner that she had begun thinking permanently of as "Harry's bed."
Severus climbed on the bed carefully, his arms full of the injured child who was still staring at him intensely. Poppy noticed that the boy had one mangled claw of a hand tightly fisted in the dark material of the man's robes. She also was honestly amazed that the boy was conscious at all, given the amount of blood and bruising that was evident around just the crown of his head.
Severus looked up at her, shaking his head ever so imperceptibly at her unspoken question, before looking back down again.
"Harry had a bit of a nightmare," he said, speaking very slowly and gently, as he worked not to frighten the child into any more undue harm.
When she walked up closer to the boy, she was sad to see him whimper a bit and pull himself farther back into the protective cradle of Severus's arms.
"Can you run your diagnostic tests from where you were standing a minute ago?" He asked her, not unkindly, obviously not daring to remove his eyes from the still terrified and traumatized boy who had decided, for whatever reason, to trust him with his protection.
"Of course," she answered smoothly, as though this were a common practice of hers.
While she casting her spells, the Weasley twins made their entrance, carrying between them the Longbottom boy, who was unconscious, once more. She excused herself and walked over to her newest patient. She noted with further inspection, that the boy had also sustained some rather impressive bruises up and down his back, as well upon the side of his brow.
After thanking the twins kindly, she changed him into the standard pajamas, and set him upon his stomach, so as not to further aggravate the pain of the bruises. She also cleaned him up and spelled some pain potion directly into his stomach, followed by some dreamless sleep. If this boy had witnessed any of what had happened with Harry, then it was likely that he would soon be having nightmares as well.
With that done, she walked back behind the curtains to where Severus was sitting with his arms still around the boy.
The boy's eyes were now closed and he appeared to be asleep, but not wanting to take any chances, she stopped at the foot of the bed with a questioning look on her face to Severus before continuing. He looked up and nodded silently, and she took the opportunity to quickly spell the same combination of potions into his stomach as she had just done with Neville.
From there, she cleaned the boy up and handed Severus some of his specially created bruise/healing salve to rub into the boy's arms and body. Together they worked on the child, her healing the broken bones in his fingers, while Severus treated his lacerations and welts.
Finally, the boy was clean, as well as could be currently expected, and was sporting the standard soft pajamas of the infirmary. Only in his case, she decided to tweak them a bit, by adding in a pattern of snitches trimmed in gold across the expanse of the top and bottom of the set.
Once that was done, she had surreptitiously set a silencing spell before turning and looking at Severus worriedly.
"Before you tell me—and you realize that you will be telling me as much as you know," she said looking at him vehemently, "I need to know how you are."
"Other than being still terrified?" Severus asked, whispering even though her silencing spell was one of the strongest in the UK.
She watched him lean his head carefully back and close his eyes for a moment, obviously trying to gather his wits about him before speaking.
"Well, I can tell that your neck and back are paining you fairly significantly," she said, speaking in his silence.
"Especially if I can tell just by looking at your face," she pointed out seriously.
"I am not concerned with my pain," he said with his head still resting against the wall; she watched with interest as he didn't argue with her as she slipped a pillow carefully behind his head.
"Ah, but I am." She said smartly, thankfully long used to dealing with his poor patient behavior. She had discovered long ago that it was far better to treat him without saying anything about it while she was doing it. It was even better if she could trick him by distracting him while she focused on his health. Generally, the worse he felt, the easier the process was—for her.
As she had also learned long ago, guilt was a good distracter.
"After all," she point out solemnly, "what would happen to the boy if you were to suddenly disappear or become gravely injured?"
She watched quietly as a wave of pain flashed over his face at her words.
"He nearly died today," he said, avoiding her question.
She felt her insides go cold at his words, yet found herself unable to resist asking about it.
"I almost got there too late," he said while she quietly spelled some double strength pain potion into his stomach.
"You mentioned something about a nightmare when you first came in. I take it that Harry was the one having the nightmare. It must have been an extremely violent one, considering his physical condition upon your arrival."
"It seemed that he was trying to get out or away from something in his dream," Severus answered, the sorrow for the boy becoming clearer in his face as the pain from his back began to release.
"And Mr. Longbottom?" She asked.
"Likely tried to wake him by touching him," Severus said, opening his eyes finally and looking at her steadily. His eyes were bloodshot and clearly exhausted.
"And you came to this conclusion because of what evidence?" She asked him calmly.
"The fact that when I touched him for the same reason as Longbottom, his wild magic threw me backwards onto the floor hard enough that someone should consider checking and seeing if there's not an imprint of my body up there in the floorboards." He grimaced at the memory.
"And then," he said, continuing on, "upon standing, I heard glass breaking."
"Oh my," she said, raising a hand to her mouth in horror.
"I there just in time to see him falling past the outside of the window."
She didn't speak but laid a hand on his shoulder tenderly, furtively checking the muscles there as she did so.
He glanced at her hand with a knowing glance, but did not say anything.
"Tell me you didn't go out after him," she said worriedly.
"I very nearly did, actually." He said, closing his eyes again at the memory. "I climbed on top of his headboard and straddled it, with only a leg planted to keep me up there. Then I looked out and spotted his—his body f-falling," Severus said, falling silent.
It worried her to hear him speak so nervously about what almost had happened.
"I did the only thing I could think of," he said, sounding much younger, almost apologetic.
"It seemed to work, did it not?" She said, carefully smoothing his hair with her hand.
"Yes. I used the accio charm on him. When he came back through, he hit me hard enough to knock us both over backwards onto his mattress." Severus fell silent and she watched him calmly before deciding to direct some dreamless sleep into his stomach as well.
"Better make it double-strength," he said, far more aware of her methods than she had ever guessed.
She noted, with some annoyance, that he hadn't even needed to open his eyes to guess her plan. She must be getting too predictable.
She pulled off his boots gently before covering them up with the blanket and tucking it carefully in around them.
Before the dreamless sleep took effect, she kissed him lightly on the forehead, and was more than a little surprised to see a genuine smile appear on his face at her actions.
Then they were both unconscious, and she looked at her boys sadly, wondering silently about what would happen next.