Chapter 37: The Hospital Wing.
Harry awoke to the sound of someone pacing in the room and the bright clear sun streaming onto his face. At once he knew he wasn't in his dormitory or it would not have been so bright. Regretfully he opened his eyes to see Snape in a white dressing gown pacing in front of a row of bed. To his left, Harry could see Ron still fast asleep and to his right he could see Bill Weasley but Hermione was nowhere to be found.
Snape looked rather strange in white. Harry had only ever seen him in black but the stern and annoyed look that he always carried with him was prevalent on his face.
"Is everything alright professor?" Harry asked startling Snape a bit.
"You are awake," Snape said as he walked to Harry's bed.
"Yes how long have I been out?" Harry asked.
"I believe two days," Snape answered, "Madame Pomfrey will not tell me anything more, that insolent woman."
"Why not?" Harry asked, "you look fine."
"I feel fine but because we went through such an ordeal," Snape rolled his eyes, "we have to stay here for observations."
"Where is professor Beck then?" Harry asked.
"In the teachers wing," Snape answered, "you didn't think they put us all together did you?"
"Then why are you here?" Harry asked.
"Because this is as far as that woman would let me go," Snape grumbled and resumed his pacing of the room.
"And where is Hermione?" He asked, "is she alright?"
"She's behind that curtain," Snape said as he pointed to a far side of the room, "and she should be fine, as far as I can tell. I would have revived her in minutes you know but Madame Pomfrey thinks it best that she take every precaution to not injure her mentally or physically.
It turned out that they had been the first to recover from the ordeal in the desert and had landed unconscious before Professor McGonagall as she paced her office waiting their return. The sleeping drought that Snape had mixed to counter act the desert fever had worked to well and Professor Beck and Hermione were still in quite a lot of danger. Bill and Ron were suffering a terrible bit of a desert sands curse that sucked the water out of them and so they were being constantly pumped full of water that was still being sucks out of them by the enchanted sands. Harry and Snape had made it out of the desert relatively unscathed and were treated for exhaustion and dehydration, as well as the effects of a touch of the sands of the desert but were relatively well off. By the afternoon, Bill and Ron had woken up but were still unable to leave and Harry and Snape were given back their clothing, changed from the medical whites, that they were given, and shooed away very quickly by Madame Pomfrey.
"One minute you can't leave and the next she can't get rid of you fast enough," Snape grumbled.
"She just doesn't want us... well me... to get to far behind I suppose and you wanted out of there pretty badly," Harry sighed as they walked past windows and he could see the Gryffindor team was out on the quiddich pitch practicing without him and Ron.
"I think it would be best, Mr. Potter," Snape began and Harry's heart sunk. He know what Snape was going to say.
"I know I can't go out there," Harry sighed, "I just got out of the hospital wing and I've got mountains of homework and my study partners are stuck in the hospital so who else is going to keep us caught up. Plus there is that essay on invisibility potions that you asked for, and professor Tonk's want two rolls of parchment on human transfigurations, and Beck wants a half roll on what to do when faced with mountain elves and lord knows what I've missed in herbology, history of magic and alchemy. Not to mention Hermione talked me into an intro to medical magic, which Doctor Radinski is running once a week for half a term as an elective on Saturdays," he said as he sulked down the hallways.
"I would have never said this to you under any other circumstances but these, but I think you deserve to play," Snape said as he too looked outside, "besides, you've been in the hospital and I know you are not lying about it as I was there as well and so I have to give you and extension on the paper as do the rest of your professors," he grumbled, "so go, get your broom and join your team. You don't know when you'll be back in the hospital as I am pretty sure it will be often."
"Are you serious?" Harry asked a little stunned.
"Yes," Snape said as he looked at Harry with a questioning look.
Harry started to say something, then turned on his heals took three steps and turned back to Professor Snape, "who are you and what have you done with Severus Snape?" He said as he drew his wand on his professor.
"Harry, I'm fine, go outside, the air will do you good," Snape said as his eye brows rose.
"Are you sure you haven't been cursed?" Harry said letting his wand slip a little.
"I believe Madame Pomfrey would have found it if I were," Snape laughed.
"Then why are you being so nice to me?" Harry asked, "it's a bit odd."
"I just think you've been though enough," Snape said after a long silence, "and you are nothing like your father. Well, maybe a little, but you have Lily's compassion. I've been wrong to treat you in such a way for so long. I'm sorry."
Harry was speechless for a moment. He was just getting used to the help and the encouragement that Snape had been giving this year but he still wasn't getting any better in his treatment of anyone. Harry had just accepted that there was always going to be something harsh and mean about Snape because that was who he was, but he was beginning to see what Dumbledore had been saying was there for years.
A grin began to appear on Snape's stone face as he watched Harry and saw the changes in his thoughts.
"I will tell you this much," Snape began again breaking the silence, "I will always be a harsh and dark person, you need not worry that I have gone soft on you. The Professor Snape you love to hate will always be in the potions class room when there are students around. I feel all the students need that push and they need to fright to remind them just how important and dangerous this can all be, but you know that already, and you know that you can always come to me if you need anything, Harry, I have nothing to loose anymore and so I can only hope to do good while I can."
Harry looked at Snape for a long moment. He could see a definite change in him now. He looked older, the lines around his eyes were deep. His face had always been like stone but there was a tired man behind his eyes. Harry in that moment felt very sorry for Snape. Here was a man who had been alone all his life. And outsider on both sides of the spectrum. It was a great mystery to Harry that Snape had been able to pick a side, both sides had never really been good to him and now he was the one who would die because of it.
"I'm really sorry we can't change the prophecy," Harry said, it was the only thing he could think of to change.
"I am ready to die," Snape said, "it's just something else to face and I deserve it."
"I don't think you do," Harry said, "not to be marked like that. I don't think anyone does. It's not our place to decide when a person's life ends or not. You should be able to live out your life and go when it is your time to go. Not by your hands or by my hands or by anyone else's. You should be let alone to live your life until that life is not to exist anymore. No one deserves to be cut it short."
"You are wiser then people give you credit," Snape said, "but you two are marked."
"I know, and it's not fair and that is why my purpose in life is to stop Voldemort from doing this to anyone else," Harry said, "I can't live knowing that other people will die because of his will. He should not have this power over us. No one should."
"But what is to be done when he is gone?" Snape asked as he leaned on a window ledge and looked at Harry, "you are still getting advice from those who have passed before you, who's to say that if you do kill him he cannot continue to teach and to gather an army to fight in his name. You can bet that every death eater alive will have a portrait of Voldemort with them always. We will never really be rid of him."
"We can always fight for what is good and right. My purpose is to stop him. So that no one shall die again by his hand. If the death eaters continue to follow in his memory then we will all have to continue to do the same. But it will be easier then with him alive and killing as he wills it." Harry said as he looked out the window again, "I really don't think, with all the wonderful things that magic can do, that he is meant make such an impact as he has on us. It's like my fame, I don't deserve it. I am just one person who really hasn't done anything that great ever. It's not who you are that makes you great. It's the things that you have done and the people who remember you."
"And I will always be remembered as the man who killed Albus Dumbledore, the greatest wizard of our time," Snape said.
"Dumbledore told you to," Harry said, "did he not?"
"Yes but that is besides the point, not everyone knows that and so I will be remembered forever as an evil man," Snape answered.
"I do not think you are an evil man," Harry said, "and as long as I am alive I will always take your side, as Dumbledore had always spoken good of you and would do the same."
"I know," Snape said as he stood again, "and I thank you for that."
"You've done enough for me," Harry said, "you need not thank me, it is I who should be thanking you, for everything that you have put me up to and brought me down from. For keeping me in line and putting that fire in me to prove you wrong. What would I have done without Professor Snape all these years to spur on my eagerness to disobey the rules?"
"It has made you a stronger person, I only hope that you have learned enough to help you on your way, I wont always be here to help you," Snape said.
"No but your teaching and your advice will always be with me," Harry said.
Snape smiled at him again. Harry was starting to get used to seeing a smile on Snape's old tired face. For so long that face had been a sign of horror and anger for him but now he seemed to just be a man, a man trying to do the right thing. All the years of anger and hatred for Snape had now faded away and as he was shooed away by the professor who would have, in a second punished him for lingering, he heard Snape tell him to enjoy the sunshine while he still could and so he did. Harry rushed outside, with his broom, to the cheers of his team and eagerness to be back in the air.