21
By the time Severus trudged wearily into the hospital wing, Madam Pomfrey had already removed Minerva's bloodied clothes and draped her in a clean white hospital gown. Both Hagrid and Madam Pomfrey were bending over her unconscious form, Hagrid with loud, wet sniffles, Madam Pomfrey with her wand and the occasional exasperated glance at the half-giant, who was obviously in her way.
Severus closed his fingers around his wand. He knew he needed to verify Minerva's identity, should in fact have done so already, and it would be better to raise his wand now, while Minerva was unconscious, before the other two could see him.
Yet his arm was shaking as he raised his wand, not from any emotion but from the aching exhaustion of the past few days. With a concerned little mew, Fiend leaped onto Minerva's bed beside Athena and turned her wide eyes to him in reassurance. Athena, already curled up over Minerva's blanket-covered feet, cast him a dismissive look, as if to ask if he really thought she didn't know her own mistress.
Severus's arm dropped.
Whether it was his movement or the sudden presence of another feline, Madam Pomfrey jerked upright, her eyes widening in alarm at the sight of him. Severus flinched at her reaction, bracing himself for another tirade about murder, when she gasped out, "Severus Snape! What in Merlin's name have you done to yourself! Come here this instant, and sit down."
Severus, bewildered, looked down at himself. His robes were the same as ever, his boots stained with grass and dew but otherwise intact. Had he done something to himself?
Madam Pomfrey's strong grip locked around his arm, dragging him to the bed beside Minerva and pushing him onto it.
"Exhausted," she clucked. "Dehydrated… malnourished…"
"Minerva -" he began.
"I'll see to Minerva," she said sharply. "You need to lie down, young man."
Severus shook his head, gaze on the bruised woman in the bed beside his. "Minerva -"
Madam Pomfrey placed firm hands on his shoulders and pushed him down into the pillows. More to his bemusement than alarm, Severus found himself too weak to resist.
"Rest," she commanded. "After I've finished looking after the Headmistress, you and I are going to have a talk." She glared at him, clucking her tongue again before turning away.
Severus felt Fiend jump up onto the bed beside him, sniffing at his grassy boots. He tried to sit up to take them off, but the effort resulted in a grunt and nothing else. He let out a weary breath.
The next thing he knew, he was opening his eyes and it was night.
Severus had woken up in the hospital wing many times in his life, usually alone, once or twice to find Dumbledore sitting beside him with a concerned twinkle. Never had he woken up to a crowd of people whispering and wielding bouquets and get-well cards. That was for the Harry Potters of the world, not for him.
Yet there they were, their robes and faces shadowed in the dimly lit ward. He blinked, certain he was dreaming. But no, they were still there. He blinked again. Of course.
They were there for Minerva, not for him.
He relaxed back into the mattress, watching through slitted eyes. Arthur Weasley and Filius Flitwick were deep in conversation, Flitwick's squeaky voice rising above a whisper every now and then. Behind them, Molly and Ginevra Weasley seemed to be having a heated argument, while George stood staring blankly between them. Bill Weasley, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Potter stood in a cluster at the foot of Minerva's bed, with the youngest Weasley boy and the Granger girl standing just behind Potter, Weasley evidently agreeing with whatever Potter was saying, Granger looking thoroughly annoyed and clutching Severus's volume on Ekrizdis. Even Madam Pomfrey, usually so diligent about removing unwanted cretins from her hospital wing, seemed to have been pulled into a conversation with Pomona Sprout and Alice Longbottom, though she kept casting concerned glances at the bed where Minerva lay.
Obviously, Severus's advice about splitting up had been taken to heart.
Something strange and slippery landed on Severus's left hand, and he looked down, startled, to see Longbottom's toad perched on his knuckles. Behind the mound of his blanketed feet, Severus could see a fluffy orange tail swinging back and forth.
"No, Trevor," Longbottom said, lifting the toad off him before the Kneazle could pounce. Catching sight of Severus's black eyes glowering at him, Longbottom grimaced. "Sorry, sir. I didn't mean to wake you."
He spoke in a whisper like the others, and to Severus's relief no one else seemed to realize he was awake. No one but Frank, at least. Frank and his son had both evidently elected to seat themselves on the left side of Severus's bed, out of the throng of people crowding the bed to Severus's right. Frank looked tired, drained, but his gaze met Severus's with some concern.
"All right?" he whispered.
Severus nodded, unsure if the man could detect the movement in the shadows. "Fine," he whispered back. He felt uncomfortable, lying like this with people all around him. The idea that he had been unconscious in their midst only minutes before made his skin crawl.
Fiend, emerging from behind his feet, padded daintily up the bedding before settling in place on Severus's chest, her whiskers tickling his neck. Automatically, he raised a hand to stroke her ears. She erupted in purrs.
At that, people did notice he was awake.
Severus tensed as eyes began to turn toward him, the universal expression one of amused incredulity as they took in the Kneazle on his chest. Severus glared at them all, secretly glad to have their focus on his familiar rather than his feeble state.
To everyone's shock, it was George Weasley who spoke first. "Snape has a kitten?"
His parents and siblings all turned amazed, hopeful eyes toward him.
"When did this happen?" George looked around, baffled, at the rest of the crowd. "Why didn't anyone tell me? It must've been on the front page of the Prophet…"
Several people chuckled. Molly Weasley burst into tears. Madam Pomfrey tried to hush them all, with limited success. Severus scowled at everyone, but kept stroking Fiend's ears. She seemed to be enjoying the attention, though her eyes still strayed to the toad in Longbottom's hands.
"Has Minerva woken?" he asked.
That shut them all up. Madam Pomfrey sadly shook her head, then, remembering herself, started ushering people out of the hospital wing. Severus rose to follow, but she gave him a dangerous look.
"Not you, young man."
Severus wanted to resist, but long experience had him sagging back into the sheets. With a sympathetic look, Longbottom and his father stood to go.
"Come back later," Frank said.
Severus devoutly hoped he wouldn't be there long enough to warrant another hospital visit. Anxiety spiked within him as he watched the rest of the Order file out of the ward. The idea that they were planning without his input made him nervous.
Once Longbottom, the last of the stragglers, had passed through the door with one last worried look, Madam Pomfrey shut them all out and returned, frowning, to the seat Frank Longbottom had left.
"I've half a mind to feed you Dreamless Sleep and send you straight back to bed for the next week, Severus." Her brow furrowed in something between concern and irritation. "What on earth have you been doing with yourself?"
Severus tried not to shrink beneath her gaze. "I don't know what you mean."
Madam Pomfrey folded her arms. "Don't take that tone with me, young man. I've been treating you since you were eleven. Every cut and bruise and hex and curse that came your way."
This was not technically true. Severus had kept plenty of his cuts and curses to himself. It was only the ones he couldn't heal that he had allowed her to treat. No need to tell her that, though; he did want to leave the hospital wing sometime in the next century.
"Alice tells me you spent three days Legilimizing her. Then you were in a duel with Death Eaters. Then you took it upon yourself to lead what's left of the Order of the Phoenix. Then you Legilimized Frank. And then you found Minerva! All with, by my reckoning, perhaps seven hours of sleep? Perhaps one meal? Severus, you need to be more careful!"
Severus flushed, jutting his chin at her defiantly. What he had done was necessary. He did not appreciate being treated like a wayward child.
"Don't even think about arguing with me!" Madam Pomfrey warned. "You've carried the weight of this world on your shoulders for much too long. The Headmaster might have been willing to work you to an early grave, but I will not tolerate it."
Severus opened his mouth to argue with her, but she had gotten to her feet, wand out. He eyed her warily.
With a flick of her wand, a tray laden with food appeared in midair. Kindly, Madam Pomfrey looked at Fiend. "I'm afraid you'll have to move, dear."
Fiend took her sweet time getting off Severus's chest, arching her back in a stretch and settling down with an anticipatory look at the floating tray.
"May I sit up?" Severus asked grumpily.
"You may," Madam Pomfrey answered, unfazed. As the tray came to a rest over his lap, she added, "I want to see these plates empty when I come back, young man."
Severus gave her an annoyed, incredulous look, eyeing the expanse of food before him. Madam Pomfrey ignored his expression and marched off.
"I hope you intend to help me," he muttered to Fiend.
Sniffing at everything, she chose, bizarrely, to start licking a Brussels sprout.
Half-hungry, half-resentful, Severus began loading his plate from the plethora of dishes the elves had served him. How Madam Pomfrey expected him to eat all of this, he had no idea. As Fiend gingerly bit into her Brussels sprout and carried it away, he glared at the closed door to Madam Pomfrey's office, wondering if he could dump the entire bowl of Brussels sprouts on the floor and blame it on the Kneazle.
His fingers were just inching toward the dish when Fiend leaped up on the bed beside him, dropping her mangled sprout on Minerva's face and mewing. Minerva woke with a start, her alarmed gaze fixing first on the Kneazle, then on the vegetable, then, with a dark swell of anger, on Severus.
For several seconds they stared at each other in silence. Out of sheer nervousness, Severus glanced at the Brussels sprout and said, "I believe she intends it as a gift."
Minerva gazed suspiciously at the sprout, not touching it. Fiend, apparently sensing that the gift was unwanted, batted the sprout off the bed like a ball and raced after it, while Athena watched from the edge of Minerva's bed, clearly torn between contempt and more competitive urges.
Minerva avoided touching the greasy stain the sprout had left and sat up, wiping a bit of green sprout off her face. She never took her eyes off Severus.
"You killed Dumbledore," she said darkly.
"I did," Severus agreed. At the rage that blazed across her face, he added, "He asked me to."
That stunned her enough to freeze the rage in place.
"You remember his hand?"
Minerva nodded, and even as she did so understanding began to flood across her face. He could see she tried to resist it, but the rage swept out of her as fast as it had come.
"He was dying…" she murmured, and the grief in her voice awoke an old grief in him, the cold horror and devastation that had gripped him the moment he realized the ring's curse couldn't be stopped.
He had never told Dumbledore what it meant to him. He had been so cold, so angry. Had Dumbledore realized what he felt? Could Dumbledore have known that when he returned to Spinner's End that night, he had been nearly torn apart by grief, biting down on his pillow so Pettigrew wouldn't hear his sobs? He had never said it, never shown it, never told Dumbledore how much it hurt, how much he cared.
He never could, now.
He looked away from Minerva, shoving food indiscriminately into his mouth without tasting it, hardly able to swallow it through the constriction in his throat. He could feel her watching him, but couldn't bring himself to look. He didn't want to see her grief.
"Why didn't he tell me?" she asked quietly.
Severus snorted, recovering himself. "Because you're a terrible actress."
She didn't argue with this. "How long was I captive?"
Severus tried to think. The past few days had been one long blur of weariness and work. "A day, perhaps?"
"A day?" she echoed, baffled. "But the castle…"
Severus knew what she meant. "The war has been over for months. The Lestranges have eluded capture, and we believe they intend to resurrect the Dark Lord. It seems likely that they Obliviated you."
"Why?"
Severus didn't answer immediately. It was difficult not to feel that they had done it specifically to torment him, though it was equally possible that they had messed up the Memory Charm. He doubted they would have cared much what state she was in, so long as she didn't remember her captivity.
"They would not have wanted you to remember your interrogation -"
"I wouldn't have remembered anything if I had been dead," she said sharply. "They would have murdered me if I hadn't escaped. They didn't need Memory Charms."
Severus gave her a considering look. "Did you escape?"
She flushed. "Of course I escaped! How else would I be here?"
"I assumed they released you."
Scalding anger reddened her face. "Released me? Released me?" She trembled. "Your friends were not so kind! They - they -" She clutched her head again suddenly, whether in pain or trauma, he couldn't tell. In a flash, he was out of bed, hovering over her.
"Minerva," he said quietly, and she jerked away from him, fear and anger in her eyes.
"Minerva, please calm yourself."
She shot him exactly the sort of look Potter used to give him during their Occlumency lessons, when he had instructed the boy to clear his mind.
"This is important," Severus said. "If the Lestranges have used magic to affect your mind, then your distress may worsen the effects."
Real, deep fear flared in her eyes at that, but she calmed herself quickly, falling utterly still. "Severus?" she asked fearfully. "You don't think - there could be permanent damage -"
Severus could easily understand her fear. If there was one part of himself he would have protected above all others, it was his mind.
"I don't know yet," he said honestly, to her renewed fear. "But do not forget that I have managed to correct the Lestranges' damage before."
Her face showed her confusion, and he cursed himself. Of course she didn't remember the Longbottoms.
"When?" she asked.
"Since the war ended, I have been working with Frank and Alice Longbottom to repair their minds," he said. "They are both well on their way to recovery."
Minerva stared at him open-mouthed for several seconds, then jerked away from him. "I don't believe you! You - you just want to get inside my mind - like they - like they -"
She was breathing fast again, panicked, and he stepped back in some alarm. "I am not lying to you."
"MURDERER!" she screamed.
Madam Pomfrey rushed out of her office, catching sight of Severus, out of bed, and Minerva, about to fling herself at him, and ordered sharply, "Back in bed! Both of you!"
"But he's - he's -"
"No buts," Madam Pomfrey said sternly, and both Severus and Minerva obeyed, defeated. "Now, what on earth are you yelling about? Severus is not a murderer, Minerva, you know that -"
"He killed Dumbledore!" she cried, her Scottish brogue wild in her anguish.
Madam Pomfrey sighed. "I thought you had forgiven him for that, Minerva."
Minerva looked confused and angry. Severus dared to ask, "Have you checked her for Memory Charms?"
Minerva glared at him. Madam Pomfrey frowned. "Hagrid did mention that, yes. But I checked her, Severus, and there's no sign, not of charms or potions - what is it?"
Severus's expression must have darkened with the horror he felt. If Minerva had not been Obliviated, then her memory loss could only have resulted from torture. And if there was damage, permanent damage…
He could not help her if she did not trust him, and she would never trust him while the damage was there…
Was this what they had intended? To send her back to him, the one person who had truly forgiven him, now forever incapable of doing so?
No, he thought, unwilling to admit the possibility.
"Severus?" Madam Pomfrey prompted.
"I need Frank and Alice Longbottom here," he said. "And their son as well. Immediately."