Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter

Half-Blood Blessing

Chapter Thirty-Six: Portkey

Tesla found Vox and me in the library and explained only what she understood of the situation. Which was not much; as much as Neville liked the girl, and as much as Harry appeared to trust her, we had kept the secrets of our quartet. Harry treated his whole life as private, perhaps as a reaction to the publicity that had come unwelcome to him at previous points in his life. When we arrived at the Room of Requirement, Vox and Tesla somewhat behind me, not even Vox's long stride keeping pace with me; I found the two. Neville had managed to carry Harry back to the Room of Requirement. It certainly seemed that he had to have been carried. I did what I could for him, and shooed Tesla out. She was not really staring, but her blatant curiosity was getting on my nerves. At least it was coupled with due concern; Neville could explain to her later.

I didn't know why Harry looked so much worse. It was not terribly unusual for this to happen as of late and normally Harry was resilient, sometimes we didn't know until the vision was hours over, when he told us of something he had seen. Something must have made the Dark Lord furious. Harry stared into the fire the rest of the evening, not even acknowledging Sirius and Remus when they left to answer the call of the moon. He seemed oblivious to the burning fever that should have turned him to ash. High fevers were just as dangerous to us as I knew they were to muggles. The potions I had brewed did no good and the fever raged on. Harry was not delirious, as anyone else would be and by evening he looked back to normal. Except he did not respond, it was as if only his body was there.

The spell lifted, and instinct drove me to my feet, everyone was gone. I deliriously latched onto the plan I had come up with. I snatched up the knife I saw on the floor for good measure, my wand was gone, and dashed for the door on the last of my strength. I didn't remember what the knife was doing there, but the pain suggested something, and the light-headedness from blood-loss, I guessed. Already, blackness took my vision every few steps, I could only be grateful that even the Dark Lord had to aim his spells. Though, frankly, there must have been some magic protecting me because I could not possibly be that lucky. Flashes of light exploded around me, making divots in the floor. A curse hit my leg, I half collapsed, fell onto the door handle and pushed outward. I was shocked to find no guard but I took what was given me and stubbornly hobbled on. Another curse cut at my hip as I rounded a corner. I was almost there. I fell against that door too, and fell inward into the un-warded room. With my last conscious thought, I activated the portkey, a charm that I wore about my neck.

Suddenly the vision left. Perhaps Voldemort remembered I could see into him the same as he could reach out to me. I hoped he had walled me off for good since it seemed I was unable to block it.

"Snape," Harry said. His grip was still strong on my hand but the rest of him looked as weak and frail as his undisguised self would suggest. He stood with a sureness that no one should have after that kind of fever. "We have to find him, raise everybody. Make sure it's one of us. Draco, if you'd come with me." He left. I was a little shocked by the suddenness, like a gale blowing through when before it had been still sunshine and not a cloud. I thought about calling out after him and demanding that he sit back down and rest. I dismissed the idea; he'd only ignore the suggestion. I grabbed the remnants of my potions and hurried after him. I saw the hem of his cloak whip around a corner; I nearly broke into a run after him. It struck me how absurd this would have been two years ago. I did catch him, but only after we had reached the grand staircase, its marble glowing in the moonlight. The torches still not lit, it seemed they commonly weren't on the full moon.

"Is there somewhere along the border of the wards that Snape might apparate to? I think he would have come here, and not headquarters…"

"Harry, is he alive?" I was suddenly very afraid for my godfather. I don't know why it had not sunk in earlier.

"He will be. Draco can you think of anywhere… Anywhere special, did he share things like that."

Harry was walking away from the castle in a direction almost no one ever followed, away from the forest and the lake and the Quidditch pitch.

"No, he didn't… Not that I can think of."

With Draco's admission I decided my idea was at least worth investigation. The path was little more than a deer run and led into a dark grove. The ground sloped upward growing rocky. It twisted around boulders and large trees. Each step felt new but the view ahead into the dimness was right. I didn't know where I was headed not really just that the path was familiar. I grew tired of walking and became the panther. Draco was his horse Animagus shortly after. It was easy enough then, leaping over tangled underbrush, boulders and fallen trees. Eventually the ground leveled. I looked back through the trees and understood why few people came this way; we had climbed to above the height of Hogwarts tallest tower. I had not realized it, but it had been almost straight up only the switchbacks allowing such a climb. The familiarity drove me onward, away from the edge of the steep hill. Five minutes later a wall loomed out of the gloom. It had an iron gate hanging between two pillars. The pillars looked untouched but the wall stretching to either side was crumbling and at the edge of visibility it was little more than a pile of rocks, beyond that I imagined the forest had grown right over it. That was as far as familiarity ran though; it dead ended a few feet before the gate.

Draco became human again too.

"Harry?" He made my name a question.

"Do you think the wards line up with this wall?" I looked up at the top of the gate. It was old, ornate. It didn't match the other gates of Hogwarts but it seemed like it might be.

"Sure," Draco shrugged, "What are we doing here? I think it much more likely that Snape would go to somewhere someone might find him…"

"I think that's the point, I've seen this place before… somewhere… Maybe Snape used to meet someone up here…" I pushed against the gate, and stepped through. It felt different on the other side. "Come on help me look."

Draco followed swiftly and drifted off quickly to the left. The other side of the gate didn't bring that sense of déjà vu. I walked a pattern through the trees, searching.

"Harry, come quick," it was a shriek, something I would not have expected Draco's smooth voice to make. I apparated to the noise.

Snape was propped between the roots of an ancient dying tree, its gnarled branches bearing cherry blossoms in November. I dropped to my knees next to Draco. He was already ripping the robes away from a deep wound in Snape's side.

"Can you do something?"

"Draco," I said gently, he turned teary eyes on me, "I saw it happen, it's real. The most I can do is keep him from death."

Draco gritted his teeth; I didn't think the frustration was with me. I remembered he had come back from lessons with Snape in a similar state, a teary anger that was very unlike him normally.

"Can you get him back to the hospital wing? I'm afraid to move him much."

I grabbed both of them and apparated to the ward. We appeared conveniently behind a curtain at the very end where Madame Pomfrey kept her stock of extra potions. Little attention was being paid to that area; there was after all only one door to the infirmary and with the apparition wards no one should have been able to get in. Ministry employees occupied beds close to Pomfrey's office but there had been only a few recent injuries that needed long term care, a priceless advantage of magic. I slipped down the aisle to her office under a notice-me-not charm, not true invisibility, but anyone who saw me would think little of my person. They would not see Harry Potter. It was actually a harder trick, I had learned, then invisibility. I almost had to believe that I did not exist. That Harry Potter wasn't real. But if I really did… I wasn't sure if I would cease to be; that part was a paradox that I was unwilling to ponder. I had found the balance of it after some practice. I realized it was a year ago that I had mastered it. Had so much time passed?

I stepped into her office and shut the door, coming back as my usual almost blatant presence. Madame Pomfrey started; the tea cup in her hand splashed.

"Madame Pomfrey, Professor Snape is in the back, he needs your help."

She stood in a surge of energy I had never seen from her, likely I had always been unconscious when she had come to my desperate need (I had only every seen the pushy nurse who had every intention of keeping you well whether you wanted to or not when in that state.)

"Quietly," I warned, "You'll know from where he has come."

"Quite, Mr. Potter," she looked at me closely, a scrutiny I had not experienced since fifth year. She took my head and studied my eyes before I could move away; I had not expected her to do it. "Were you held under the cructiatus curse today?"

"No, but he was," I said and moved pointedly out of her reach.

'Harry Potter really is a shocking specimen,' I thought. Poor boy, I didn't think there had been a year before last that he had not spent time in my ward, and not for the ordinary stuff. Everybody came by for some pepper-up potion once in a while; that at least was a good cure, tasty and provided the relatively amusing side effect of steam pouring out your ears for a good couple of hours. No, that had never been Harry; I had never seen him for anything ordinary. Here he was in his usual heroics; concerned for another when it was he who needed a bed, some dreamless sleep potion, judging from the shadow under his eyes, and maybe a few other things. He looked a little frayed in another way; something I had discovered was a pretty good indication of torture under 'crucio.'

I realized his concern when I went behind the curtain. Snape had come back to me, mostly on Dumbledore's insistence, many times during this war and the one before. It had rarely called for anything more than bed rest; and normally he slipped into the castle unnoticed and dosed himself in his own room. I suspected he used some of the less legal versions of the potions I distributed. I pushed his blonde apprentice aside, taking the wadding of cloth he had pressed against Severus' side.

"I already gave him some blood-replenishing potion; I only had half a dose though. No broken bones, that I found, maybe a fracture, left ankle… This wound is the worst," he informed me as I did preliminary diagnostics. With the blood loss he should be dead; Harry had something to do with that of course. I had seen the pattern; his friends came in without him occasionally, but if I heard of a fight that involved him, I knew no one on his side would have need of my help, though his opponents commonly did. I looked around for the young man. He had disappeared. Draco was helping me clean wounds. He'd make a good healer; he had sure enough hands and it seemed a steady head as well, that was if he did not stay secluded in a potion's lab. It took no effort at all to mend the gashes; all were clean cuts, from a sharp weapon I guessed. Magic, even cutting spells cauterized the edges of wounds and those tended to leave scars no matter the skill of the healer.

Snape did not wake, but I was not worried, I dosed him with more potions and left Draco to watch him for the next few hours though I couldn't really risk either for very long without Dumbledore knowing and dealing with the Ministry. They had really caused more problems in my ward than I needed.

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Shifted Illusions