AN: Hopefully everything is fully fixed now! In case you missed it, Fan Fiction was down for about a week and even though I posted my story most people weren't able to read it. If that was you, make sure you've read chapter 8 before you go forward. In this chapter I had to work really hard to keep us in the quarantine room though action was happening elsewhere, but I'm committed to trying to make the reader feel quarantined alongside Harry and Severus. Let me know if you're feeling the claustrophobia yet.
It was only two days later, with Harry glancing at the map every few minutes while trying to do his transfiguration reading, that suddenly Harry jerked with what felt like an electric current on what he saw on the map. It was late, honestly he had been thinking of finishing up for the night, but when he saw that name all thoughts of sleepiness had gone straight out of his head.
"Snape!" he exclaimed. "Snape!"
Not even bothering to correct the boy's informal address due to the urgency of his call, Professor Snape swept over to where Harry was studying and looked at the map intently. Nodding his head, he made a quick decision. Using the word wouldn't work – that would prepare the team for Pettigrew. Which was the fastest way to get Dumbledore the message? Hesitating only a fraction of a second, he winced a bit as he pulled out his wand and wordlessly did a Patronus spell. He wanted to speak harshly, but he knew he could never speak harshly to his Patrons. With gentleness but urgency, he said, "Tell Dumbledore the trap has been sprung but we've attracted the wrong marauder."
The translucent blue doe darted away from Snape quickly, knowing the urgency necessary for the message. Snape watched it go, not wanting to look back and face the boy.
"Your Patronus was very beautiful," Harry told him quietly. "Why were you so worried about me seeing it?"
"What do you mean, Potter?" Snape growled, though he realized the growl lacked energy.
"I mean, isn't that why Dumbledore set up a word to work?" he continued. "So you wouldn't have to share your Patronus with me?"
Snape cursed Dumbledore in that moment, and his lack of subtlety. If the boy could have picked that up, it was clearly not well done at all. It would have been better to have no attention drawn to it at all.
"Whatever your Patronus is can be personal," Snape tried to explain. "Dumbledore has a Phoenix, probably due to his long and close relationship with his familiar, and because his family has a particular affinity for phoenixes."
"Well, yours isn't a spider," Harry commented.
"Nor a squid, nor a bat," Snape agreed with sarcasm.
"The deer was pretty," Harry repeated. "But I don't understand why that is so personal."
"And that is why I was unwilling to share it," Snape said, his voice icy. "A smart person would press no further." Having Lily's son ask about his Patronus was too much; he felt the walls of occlumency surrounding the fortress of his psyche. He knew in that moment if there were a decent Legilimens around he would be in trouble. Closing his eyes, he breathed deeply and tried to regain his emotional control. Not since he was in school had he found himself working this hard this often to regain his emotional control.
"Are you accusing me of being smart?" Harry teased.
"A futile hope, I see," Snape snapped back, but the tension was broken. He was back in control of his emotions.
"I guess now all we can do is wait," Harry shrugged. "I mean, we can't really do anything else trapped in here."
"Indeed," Snape told him. "Except perhaps prepare a place for him if indeed they do catch him."
"Would they bring him here?" Harry asked incredulously.
"He has been exposed," Snape answered simply. "More than even you, I'm afraid, so nowhere else at Hogwarts makes sense; this is the quarantine ward. Nowhere else makes sense. And places other than Hogwarts don't make sense because there's a question of him being innocent, so Dumbledore will try and ascertain his innocence before calling the ministry. So, I anticipate he will want him to be somewhere safe, somewhere nobody else will go, and somewhere where someone he trusts will be watching him. So yes, he's coming here."
"But what if he has the disease and we don't?" Harry asked, both shocked and intrigued by the idea of Sirius Black coming into their quarantine room. What would it be like? What would he be like?
"Hmm," Snape considered. "I shall make a barrier between him and us. This is an expandable quarantine ward, it should not be hard to make larger to accommodate him."
"Then why didn't you make it bigger for us?" Harry asked cheekily.
Ignoring the obnoxious teenager, Snape concentrated on activating the charms in the room to expand the room, adding another alcove. A regulation issue bed popped up, made and ready to use, along with a small desk and other amenities identical to the ones Harry and he had. A door appeared on the wall, leading to his separate necessary room. Then, with a swoop of his wand and words Harry had never, he erected the boundary.
"This boundary works so that a person can go in, but not out again," Snape explained. "So don't go in, it's an irritating spell to reverse. Only house elves can go in and out."
"Can't they spread the disease?" Harry asked.
"Luckily they cannot," Snape explained. "Again, you act as if you are the only one who thinks of these things. We would hardly allow me to summon a house elf before if it were a danger. They cannot catch it, and they have magics that prevent the spread of disease. If the occupant needs any medical care it will be given to him through a house elf."
"So what can we do now?" Harry asked.
"I'm afraid that now all we can truly do is wait," Snape told him.
"Since I'm already exposed, I can go and help . . ." Harry reasoned.
"Absolutely not," Snape told him with stern certainty. "As if an underaged wizard could actually be of help! Do you think you can out-wand Flitwick? The Headmaster? Do you believe your head of house needs your assistance?"
"It feels useless waiting here!"
"Then your help is just irritating, self-centered arrogance," Snape's eyes flashed. "It is as I always suspected."
Harry, knowing Snape was right but still feeling angry about it, glared right back. "Well maybe if I was treated better than a hamster in a cage . . ."
"May I remind you that I am in this cage as well due to your careless rule-breaking?" Snape spat, arching an eyebrow in malice. "Do you really wish to complain?"
Harry, knowing that Snape was again right and not wanting to feel the guilt on that particular point, stalked over to the door out that held the shimmery blue barrier.
"I wouldn't touch that barrier if I were you," Snape told him mildly, smirking slightly.
"I think we've already established that you are not me!" Harry yelled back pugnaciously. Then, in a fit of pique and a desire to push back against Snape in some tangible way, his hand did what his mind knew logically was a truly terrible idea – he reached up and touched the barrier. His body convulsed on an electric shock, and as he felt his body fall to the ground. Just before he lost consciousness, the last thing he saw was a smug grin on the face of his Potions Professor.
Harry began to be able to open his heavy eyelids and see colors swirling before them, groaning a bit as he realized the ceiling above him was still in the quarantine room. He tried to shift his body a bit but found that he couldn't move.
"Welcome back," Snape snidely greeted him. "I suspect that you are wondering why you can't move."
Harry found his tongue thick and unsteady, but moved it around a bit and was able to form the word, "Yes."
"In the quarantine ward they account for some diseases affecting patients' minds, which is common with conditions such as high fevers," Snape explained. "If a patient becomes so distraught as to try and leave quarantine without permission from Madame Pomfrey, then they are rendered unconscious and frozen for their safety and the safety of others."
"How long was I out?" Harry asked groggily.
"Only a few minutes," Snape answered. "No reason to be overly dramatic about it."
"When can I move again?" he asked, testing his limbs.
"We shall see, shall we?" Snape answered neutrally, some amusement in his voice. "Right now you make a great stand to hold the map so I can see what's going on with capturing Black. With you frozen I can put the map in your hands and see everything I need to see; it's very convenient. I moved you over to your bed so it would be more convenient for me."
"What's going on?" Harry asked. "I can't see!"
"Hmm, I think that if someone could have kept his temper in check he would be seeing it for himself," Snape answered.
Harry bit back a smart remark, knowing that it wasn't going to help him any. He also felt uniquely vulnerable at that moment – he couldn't move, didn't know what was happening, and being shocked by the barrier reinforced just how trapped he was. He had to just wait – just like he had been this entire quarantine – and see what would happen.
"I wish this map offered more detail," Snape mused. "It would be nice if we got a sense for what was happening."
"Please sir," Harry asked as politely as he could think. "Can you tell me what you can see?"
Sighing deeply, Snape decided he would let Harry see, if only because the boy might understand something he was missing. Keeping Harry's hand flat against the map, he raised the map to above Harry's face so he could look at it.
"It looks like they're surrounding him," Harry observed. "Except for McGonagall? How is she getting so close?
"Surely you remember that she is a cat animangus?" Snape asked the boy. "He is less likely to react to a cat than a wizard, and also less likely to attack his former head of house when she reveals herself. It is a good plan."
"Look, there, he's running!" Harry exclaimed.
"Right towards Lupin," Severus observed. "And past him. I wonder if Lupin is a bit in shock actually seeing his former friend. And, there, it's over - I suspect Black is down by how suddenly he stopped. My guess by the angles is a Petrificus Totalis from the Headmaster, although it could have come from Lupin as well I suppose. Yes, see how they're all gathering now? It's over."
"They didn't kill him, did they?" Harry asked.
"I doubt dead people would be on this map," Snape answered simply. "Look, they've gathered around him. I think we should make ready for a roommate."
"Do you think he's guilty?" Harry asked quietly, realizing that in a few minutes he was going to meet the man that might or might not have engineered the deaths of his parents.
"Yes, of a great many things," Snape answered. "Black was a bully and an arrogant prat. But guilty of betraying your parents? I don't know. Deep down, I realize that I have never fully believed it."
"If it has to be Pettigrew or Black, which do you think it was?" Harry asked softly. "It seems that it has to be one."
"I liked neither of them, let me be clear," Snape told him. "They were both arrogant bullies that dedicated their lives to making me miserable."
"But which do you think could do this?" Harry pressed.
"Pettigrew," Snape answered without hesitation, realizing that as he said it that it had been something he had felt in the recesses of his mind. "Black was cruel and arrogant and underhanded in his dealings with me – but he was loyal. Loyal to a fault, almost. But Pettigrew was calculating, a sycophant – buddying up to those that had a higher position or power."
Harry nodded. "Thank you for telling me the truth," he said quietly.
They both watched as the professors returned inside, and then only Dumbledore and Lupin accompanied Black up to the quarantine ward.
"I suppose we can't have you frozen forever," Snape sighed, and tapped Harry with his wand. The spell faded away, and Harry felt his body able to move again.
"Thanks!" Harry exclaimed, happy to be free.
"Next time you are frozen the whole time," Snape told him firmly. "No more Gryffindor theatrics."
"I promise to stay away from the barrier," Harry promised.
"Then stay still, I think we have a guest," Snape ordered, and they both sat quietly to see the new arrival.
Harry sat up on his bed and watched Dumbledore levitate a ragged, dirty body of a man through the barrier, through their room and into the room prepared for him.
"Thank you for anticipating our needs," Dumbledore told Snape. "This is the perfect place for him; you saved me some spellcraft."
"I see you had little problems catching him," Snape observed.
"I froze a bit," Lupin confessed. "He just looked so . . . crazed. And scared. And skinny and dirty – almost inhuman."
"You made him hesitate too," Dumbledore soothed. "Long enough for my spell to catch him. I imagine it was quite a shock to see him that way."
"It was," Lupin confessed, looking close to tears.
"I will have the house elves start on him right away," Dumbledore promised. "He will be made as comfortable as possible. And Poppy can do what she can from afar directing the house elves.
"Can I stay?" Lupin asked. "It seems like the least I can do."
"As you wish," Dumbledore told him, patting his arm with sympathy. "Remember, we don't know anything yet. It may very well be that Black is innocent, or it may be as we believed before and he is guilty. Yes, he looks a pitiable sight right now, and let's get him the care he needs. But let's not let down our guard until we know more."
Lupin nodded acquiescence, glancing at the filthy, ragged form on the bed. "He was my friend."
"I know," Dumbledore told him. "And in the next few days we will find out if he truly is your friend or if he is the murderer of your other friends. But first, let's get him cleaned up and see what we can do about his injuries. Nobody deserves to be in the state he is in, even if he is a secret deatheater."
Harry watched, fascinated, as house elves brought in steaming buckets of water to fill an old fashioned bath tub, which they quickly stripped off Sirius' clothes and lowered him into. The rags that had adorned his body were blinked away with distaste; Harry suspected they would never resurface based on the look of disgust from the house elf that did it. These were Hogwarts elves that were used to dealing with the messes that many children wrought – but this smelly, filthy man was testing their fortitude.
Harry felt a little shy looking and Sirius' body, but he found himself a little fascinated – first, he had never seen an adult naked before, nor had he seen anybody as skinny and as dirty and bruised as Sirius was either. The house elves were very quick with the wash towels so that he didn't see the parts that would be truly embarrassing, so he watched in fascination as they thoroughly washed every inch of him several times over. One elf even took a small brush that looked like a toothbrush and thoroughly cleaned the nooks and crannies in and around Sirius's ears. The vanished the water as it grew gray and filthy, and then filled the tub again with warm soapy water to commence their scrubbing.
When they finally declared him clean enough, his skin glowed with a pink, scrubbed look even though it was also pale and mottled with bruises. They dried his inert body off, placing him on the bed and then thoroughly going over every inch of his body to apply ointments to his cuts and his bruises.
"Are house elves healers?" Harry asked, fascinated.
"Anybody can smear some bruise balm," Snape answered loftily. "But yes, they can do some basics. If there's anything complicated they know when to call in Madame Pomfrey."
"He looks terribly skinny," Harry noticed. The man's ribs stuck out precipitously.
"I imagine the menu at Azkaban is not extensive," Snape replied, trying to keep his voice neutral. "And he probably has had trouble scrounging food for himself. No wonder our trap was tempting for him."
"Will he be okay?" Harry asked, realizing it was going to be hard not to feel pity for the very pathetic figure in front of him.
"We shall see," Snape answered, his voice carefully neutral. Until that moment, he didn't realize how complicated it was going to be to have Black there in quarantine with Harry. He saw it unfold – they would prove Black innocent, Harry begin to love and trust his new Godfather, and everyone would live happily ever after. And Snape had no idea why this idea bothered him so much.