Thank you to wonderful Beta of this chapter, SongOfStars
Chapter Three- The Delicate Art Of Healing
Poppy fumbled, scooping the potions into her arms, her wand in her free hand as she desperately tried to close some of Harry's wounds on his chest. "They're not- They won't-" Poppy stammered, dragging her wand across Harry's torn chest, watching as the skin tried to knit itself back together before falling apart.
"It's dark magic," Severus growled. "It can't be healed with magic," He explained. It was well known by wizards who practice in the dark arts that werewolf bites and scratches can't be healed with magic. If Harry had the slightest chance of pulling through, they had to rely on what was known as the muggle way, but first they needed to stop the bleeding. Severus grabbed the syringes that he got from his personal lab, normally reserved for sucking out spleen juice from a rat and filled them up with two different potions, Blood- replenishing and blood clotting before handing one of them off to Poppy.
Severus could hardly bring himself to look at the child. Harry's breathing was shallow, red ooze gurgling from his neck and chest. His face was white, his skin almost transparent. Those brilliant green eyes that showed beneath the slits of Harry's eyelids were fading fast and Severus tried not to be reminded of another set of green eyes dying in his arms those many years ago.
Those green eyes that held so much emotion within them, so much determination and persistence, so much stubbornness. Even though Harry looked and appeared to be a replica of his father, you could tell that he was his mother by his eyes. He held the same determination that Lily did.
Shaking those thoughts out of his mind, he jabbed the syringe into Harry's upper thigh and pushed down the plunger as Poppy did the same, injecting the Blood- replenishing potion into the crook of the boy's arm.
Once the potions were injected, Poppy grabbed the gauze from her kit and pressed it against the boy's neck. "He's having difficulty breathing," Poppy commented before summoning an oxygen mask and placing it over Harry's mouth and nose. The oxygen mask was charmed, no tubes or wires needed, the oxygen was magically placed within the mask for the patient, increasing or decreasing as the patient needed.
Poppy turned back to Severus, watching as he grabbed a needle and thread.
"Stitches?" Poppy gasped, eyeing the point of the needle that Severus thread. "Severus, that's archaic. We haven't needed to do that in centuries, not since healing spells were invented."
Severus grunted but otherwise said nothing. It was archaic not to mention barbaric. Sewing a person's skin closed with needles and string as if they were no more than a doll, a puppet held together with rope. But if magic wouldn't keep Harry's wounds closed, then sutures were the only option.
Severus ignored Poppy's gasp as he leaned over Harry's leg and pinched the skin together before piercing it with the point of the needle. It was easier than Severus would have thought or liked as he pushed the needle though the boy's skin, tying the two ends of the thread together to make the first suture.
Poppy couldn't bear to look at what was taking place, so she kept her focus on extracting the shards of ceramic from Harry's side and then healing the wounds with magic before moving onto his shoulder, picking out splinters of wood from the gaping wound. It was the only thing she could do since she wasn't knowledgeable in muggle medicine.
"How bad is the scarring going to be?" Poppy asked, afraid of what the answer might be. Harry has already been through so much in his short life time, he should be the last person who should have to go through this. She couldn't understand how Remus could have let this happen. How couldn't he have known that tonight was a full moon? What was Harry doing out of bed? Why was he going to see Remus? All of these questions ran though Poppy's mind as she worked on Harry's shoulder.
Severus didn't answer her. His hands moved methodically, precisely, his eyes never leaving what he was doing. He didn't dare look at Harry's face, he didn't dare answer Poppy's question.
It was eight hours, eight long agonizing hours, of Poppy fretting over Harry and cleaning his sheets. Once Severus was done stitching up an area, Poppy would smear a thick yellow cream to help with infections before she would cast a binding spell over top that glowed slightly white as it covered the work Severus had done. It also help to restrict Harry's movements which would allow for better healing. This progress continued as Severus sutured Harry's leg, chest, back, neck and face, leaving over eight hundred stitches in the boy. Poppy used muggle gauze and bandages for Harry's face so as not to affect his breathing any more than it already was, but everywhere else was a magical covering.
Poppy made sure Harry was as comfortable as the child could be. Pillows lined his back in an effort to keep his weight off, thankfully, this was the only good time that Harry being underweight for his age and height came in handy. A thin blanket was placed over Harry to preserve his modesty and an IV drip was placed in his hand in order to control the child's pain for when he wakes up.
Once everything was done, Severus took a step back and stared at the boy on the bed, Messy black hair and pale skin held together with jagged stitches, it almost was enough to make him sick.
Poppy stood beside him, tears falling in a silent stream down her cheeks, even though she would never admit it, she cared deeply for the boy.
"Severus, how did this happen? How could this happen?"
Severus pressed his lips together in anger as he was forced to think about Remus for the first time in the past eight hours. He took a glance out the window and saw that the sun was about to come up and realized that Remus must have changed back by now. Without saying a word to Poppy, he summoned some sweats from his room along with grabbing a potion from his lab.
"I don't know, but I'm going to find out" Severus snarled before storming out of his chambers, leaving Poppy to care for Harry for the time being.