DAHLIA was not at all prepared for the sight that met her eyes as she skidded to a halt and came to a full stop in the doorway. At first, she thought for certain that her mind was playing a sport of her vision. It could not be true.
The low, hoarse croaks, rasping noises that emanated from the man's throat as Snape attempted to regain the power of speech, the blood that trickled from his throat.
Or how Snape had somehow managed to regain enough consciousness to bolt from his bed, reclaim possession of his wand somehow from the attending Healer, How the man was now backed into a corner, with a wild look of feral anger on his pallid complexion, rage turning his already black eyes even darker, if such a thing was possible.
She froze at the look and inhaled. She could not quite process what she was seeing. At first, she wondered if it was Snape that she was seeing, but then the realization set deep in her bones and chilled her, turning her blood to ice water in her veins, eliciting a shudder down her spine.
With a ginger touch of Garret's arm, the apprentice Healer was all too happy to flee the room, shooting Dahlia a grateful look and trying to thank the witch with his eyes.
She returned the look with one of her own that told the young man that he did not need to. She steadily lifted her gaze and directed the other two, more experienced Healers in the room to leave them be.
"If you could leave us alone, please, Healers Jones and Fredrickson, I would appreciate that, let me handle this," she made sure to instruct in a calm, clear tone.
"Healer Hawthorne, perhaps you might not be aware of this, but Severus Snape is a very dangerous man," barked Jones, to which Dahlia bristled slightly, though she masked it with a cold smile and continued to remain stoic.
"I understand that, but the man is my patient, Jones. If you are so concerned for my safety you may watch from outside the hall. He will not hurt me. Please. I know what I am doing," she calmly reiterated.
The two older men looked at each other, doubtfully, but soon nodded and reluctantly left the thirty-four-year-old to her own devices with the wizard in front of her. Dahlia waited until they were gone from the room and turned back to face him.
Without even thinking, Dahlia exhaled slowly, willing her racing heart to calm down and the copious surges of adrenaline pumping through her veins to cease, and Severus Snape went stiff at the sound.
If he were a hound, she would have imagined his ears perked up at the noise. He did not move from spot backed up against the corner, his wand dominant hand, now bandaged, was badly shaking.
It was a miracle he could even hold his wand upright, but then, she knew from the conversations she had overheard her father talking about, that this man in front of her was something of a marvel and an enigma.
He had to have been, to have lived his entire adult life as a plant, as a spy for Albus Dumbledore without the Dark Lord ever once becoming suspicious of the man.
She mindlessly let out a small exhale through her nose and inwardly groaned as Severus Snape went stiff and tense at the sound. He did not move from his spot in the corner, his black eyes glassy and unfocused, and she knew the man had heard the noise.
Dahlia sensed she was in possible danger of Snape lashing out at her in his agitated and confused state upon waking up in an unfamiliar room here in St. Mungo's, he seemed so unpredictable, not to mention unstable at this exact moment, but she knew she could not and would not bolt from the room.
She waited, though did so in a frantic stance and did not bother to lower her wand.
Snape slowly lowered his wand dominant arm that held tightly onto the weapon, his knuckles white from the iron grip he had around its handle, but he never once relinquished the hold of his wand.
His breaths were shallow, his chest heaving for calm and understanding. Dahlia could not be sure, but she thought she heard the barely-audible faintness of restrained whimpers trapped in his throat. She knew it had to be painful for him, considering the grievous extent of his wounds at his throat, and hoped he would not try to speak.
After an interminable struggle, Dahlia finally managed to find her voice, and just barely managed to get the question out due to her breaths hitching in her throat because she kept forgetting how to properly breathe.
"Severus, can you hear me? My name is Dahlia, sir, Dahlia Hawthorne. I've been assigned to you as your Healer for the year. Was that you who attacked Healer Mulberry? Why? What happened? What are you doing out of bed?" she questioned, one query after the other.
She hoped he was cognizant enough to answer at least a few of her questions to ascertain what happened. Her voice was just barely above a whisper, though even she heard the faint undertone of shock that had seeped its way to her voice's surface.
Snape did not answer her. He merely continued to regard her with his damp and angry, unreadable black eyes that were cracked and red-rimmed at their edges.
His was, in Dahlia's opinion, the most dangerous stare in her experience thus far as a Healer.
"Tell me," she tried again, this time, with more persistence in her words, though Dahlia was sure to keep her voice as calm and level-headed as possible, not wishing to aggravate the wizard more than he already seemed to be. "I'm here to help you, Snape. I'm not going to hurt you."
He almost seemed to startle at that, which gave Dahlia pause. He had been expecting her to raise his wand against him, but in his current physical state, that was the last thing she wanted to do.
When Severus finally addressed her, the man turned his head away sharply in a high prideful manner that was almost arrogant. His response to her was clipped, disconnected, and emotionless, cold, even.
"Leave me, Miss Hawthorne," he spoke to her in a voice that could only be described as a low rasp that was menacing.
Frustration and a wave of warm anger bubbled within her chest at Snape's mock elitist attitude against her and she heard herself offering up a reply just as fast as he had given the command he thought she'd obey, though she was in charge, not him.
"No," Dahlia answered in a firm voice, and then she waited with bated breath, steeling herself for the cold annoyance and perhaps even volatile outburst that was sure to follow her refusal to leave the man alone.
Suddenly, a loud, slow, and threatening exhale that sounded impatient could be heard exiting through the man's flaring nostrils. Dahlia tensed, though did not retreat. However, she was beginning to wonder if she had miscalculated her place.
He stumbled towards her, his wand still in hand, and against her better judgment, Dahlia backed up, raising her wand to aim at the wizard's chest and prepared to send Snape backward onto his hospital bed with a well-aimed Flipendo Knockback Jinx if he did not cooperate. She glanced with narrowed eyes to his clenched fist curled around the handle of his wand and back up to his eyes.
The wizard's black eyes were filled with raw fury and annoyance she had never seen in another wizard before, not even in her most unruly patient for as long as she had been a Healer since she turned twenty-one, after rigorous years of study.
He was looking at Dahlia with incredulous disbelief shimmering just behind the moisture glistening in his cracked eyes, as though Dahlia had sprouted a pair of antlers.
"What?" he rasped, flinching, and raising his free hand to his throat, pulling a face and grimacing as he felt the scarred tissue of his throat, his shaking bone-white slender fingers running over the column of his throat, feeling his wounds for himself. "What did you say?" Even as faint and hoarse as his voice was, it was too calm. Almost menacing, she thought.
Nevertheless, Dahlia knew she needed to stand her ground. As if to emphasize her point, she raised her wand in a show of self-surrender and cautiously moved towards the small wooden night table beside Snape's bed.
She thought she heard him hiss through gritted teeth as she moved, but he seemed to visibly relax as she gingerly rested her wand on the night table and proceeded to raise her hands cautiously in front of herself, trying to show Severus Snape she meant him no harm.
Dahlia breathed out a shaking breath slowly, hoping that would supplicate the man some.
"There. You're armed and I'm not, now will you please listen to me? I said no, Professor Snape," Dahlia repeated, her answer firm and loud to punctuate her unwillingness to comply with Snape's wishes. "I'm not going anywhere. I'm afraid I cannot do that, sir. It's my job as your Healer to help you heal, and right now, what would be best for you is to rest. I'm taking you to your home in Spinner's End in a while, but for now, you need to lie down, you're still very, very weak, sir," she emphasized through clenched teeth, softly.
Severus narrowed his eyes, his angular jaw clenching in anger as he staggered towards her, his equilibrium uneven and still quite weak. Though the moment Dahlia moved forward to counteract the wizard's movements and prevent him from trying to shove past her, her brazenness made him lose his hold on his wand.
His wand slipped from his shaking fingers and landed with a loud clatter to the ground, next to his bare feet, which had been cleaned of the blood, she was pleased to see.
"Severus, sir, please let me help you," she begged softly. "Severus, please," she tried, reaching out a hand to wind around his bicep in the attempt to gently guide him back towards his hospital bed.
But he shrunk away from her outstretched hand even more. She could tell that Severus Snape was distraught, in pain, and needed rest, or else he'd likely faint.
"Sta….stay where you are, witch," he ordered. The anxiety commandeered his anger every time Dahlia took another cautious half-step towards Hogwarts' former Headmaster. "Don't come any closer to me…"
"Let me help you," Dahlia continued to try to offer, only to receive a hiss from Snape that sounded almost snakelike to her.
"I DON'T NEED YOUR HELP!" he roared, though just the effort to summon enough strength to practically shout it at her had caused his breathing to go uneven, and his equilibrium pitched him forward as he started to sway forward precariously.
She flinched, though only because he did so the moment the words were out of his mouth, and she could tell it was hurting Snape just to speak.
Dahlia was about a few feet away from Severus at this point and she could see the details of the condition Snape was in. His black hair was wild and in a disarray from the sweat that clung to his brow. His already pale skin was turned almost ashen in color and laced with a sickly greyish tinge Dahlia knew she didn't like, and clammy, bloodied, his eyes were still bloodshot, red, and utterly world-weary and exhausted.
He looked like a man who had given up. She could tell with just one look that he was about to keel over.
Finally, Snape's strength left him and he fell towards her and landed on his knees directly in front of her, his cheeks red and flushed with embarrassment. Dahlia took advantage of the opportunity to catch him before he fell, letting out a grunt as she struggled to support his body weight in a semi-sort-of hugging position, and she was grateful the former Hogwarts Headmaster did not fight her. She knew he was too weak to fight back.
She lifted him upright into more of a standing position using the strength of her legs and shoulders, throwing one of her arms around his neck and encircling her other around the small of his back, and together, she gently guided him back towards the bed. Dahlia gingerly set Severus Snape on the edge of the bed and almost instantaneously, the man's body sagged and went limp. He managed to keep his head upright to look at her, likely trying to assess if she was of a mind to jinx him or not, but his body was swaying so much with how weak he was.
Dahlia had to rest a hand on his left shoulder to steady the man as best she could, and only then was she able to peer into the wizard's unfocused deep black eyes. His lids went heavy. To try to keep him awake, at least for a moment, she snapped her fingers in front of his face, watching as Snape blinked rapidly at her, his eyes glassy and confused.
"Severus? Sir, please, come on, I need you to stay awake just for a moment, sir!" Dahlia pleaded with him.
He tried his best to stay at attention and follow her orders.
Dahlia snapped his fingers in front of Snape's face again and this time, thank Merlin, Severus lifted his chin enough to meet her gaze coherently enough so she could instruct him on what to do to rest.
Severus managed to rest his head against the crook of Dahlia's neck, unable to move and completely and utterly at the young witch's mercy. After a minute or two, she felt dampness seep into the fabric of her lime green Healer's robes and she pulled back somewhat to look into the man's tear-filled eyes.
She was so taken aback she was unable to stifle the gasp that escaped from the back of her throat. It startled her, to see the Potions Master and former Headmaster this way, that she almost did not know what to do, so Dahlia forced herself to do the only humane thing that she could think of to do.
She comforted him. She knew going into panic mode would only make this tense and awkward situation, even more, worse for Snape, and to a lesser extent, herself, too. Running her slender fingers through the man's coarse black hair soothingly, Dahlia ended her gentle stroking at the base of his neck. She repeated this movement a few more times until a small, strangled noise that sounded like a sob which he was trying to vent off and swallow down against but couldn't, finally escaped his lips and she rested her cheek on his head.
"It's alright," she soothed, trying to speak reassuringly. "I'm taking you home soon. In an hour, once you take your next dosage of Blood-Replenishing Potions and you've had something to eat, sir," she muttered. She hugged Snape to her for a short time, and he seemed to go calm in her embrace.
Severus Snape reminded Dahlia of a scared and lost child, nothing like the intimidating man whom she'd heard stories of, the spy for Dumbledore who'd spent most of his adult life as a double agent for Lord Voldemort. She could not even begin to imagine the stress such a life must have put him under. She knew the man in front of her now was nothing like the man that was used to wielding his power through fear and authority.
Nothing like what she knew of Hogwarts' former Headmaster, which was admittedly only a little, and even then, her knowledge of Severus Snape was limited to his gift in Potions-brewing and of course, his allegiances, now that the truth of him was out.
Dahlia's eyes widened as she realized, that the truth of this wizard was now right in front of her all along. Severus Snape's shield was down, and she thought she was beginning to understand why he was acting so hostile towards her when she'd first entered his room and had found him backed into a corner.
He was in his most vulnerable state and not used to others seeing him in it. She knew that all too well about herself, as it happened.
When her stubborn pride would get the best of her, and she flat out refused to let anyone else in. It was a state Dahlia knew Severus did not want anyone to see. But she did not matter.
As the man's live-in Healer for what she surmised was to be the better part of a year given his injuries, she knew she would be exposed to his emotional hurts as well as the man's physical wounds.
All she wanted was to heal Snape's wounds, and perhaps, he would even confide in her, finally, and she would break through the surface of one of the most fascinating wizards who would be remembered in the history books taught in Hogwarts and throughout the other wizarding schools scattered all across Europe for years to come.
Severus Snape was a man who would be remembered and would not so easily fade from the record.
Judging by his current state, Dahlia knew things needed to change. She went to work on getting him situated back against the pile of pillows at the base of the bed's headboard and she winced.
She could not believe how bad his throat looked. Blood oozed from the column of his throat, the two pinpricks where the snake who had attacked him had bitten him, though as she waved her wand, they seemed to be drying. Though his throat was not the worst of his words. Her hand reached to her lips and her throat tightened as she rolled up the sleeves of his hospital robes, checking Snape for other injuries that she could not see.
Her throat hollowed at the sight of dozens of tiny scars that littered the surface of the skin of his left forearm where the Dark Lord was branded into the man's skin, where he seemed to have tried to slit his wrists with a razor blade in times long past. She could tell by his scars' faded whiteness that these wounds were old.
She barely held in a sob that threatened to release as her dark eyes glossed over. She reminded herself that for her patient's sake, she knew she needed to maintain composure.
Dahlia breathed slowly through her nose, willing her racing heart to relax, as her eyes flicked to his face.
Snape's eyes were closed, his breaths were slow, and she knew that was not always a good sign. With a trained and practiced eye, the young witch scanned his features. Snape's complexion had paled a shade further than before if that was even possible for the wizard. His skin now held a sickly greyish tinge she knew she did not like at all.
Dahlia instinctively moved her hand to Snape's left cheekbone and ran the knuckle of her index finger softly against it, surprised at how flushed and warm he felt. He was likely to run a fever at this rate if she could not relocate him soon to his own home in Spinner's End and get him comfortable so that she could tend to him throughout the night and get his fever down. He roused at her soft touch with a jump, looking up at her through unfocused pupils and in confusion, Snape blinked at her owlishly.
The face that was looking back up at her and against the pillow was the face of a man who seemed more than ready to let go, to give up and let Death come and claim him and spirit him away to the afterlife like an old friend. It was a heartbreaking, pained look, a look of turmoil and agony, one that told the thirty-four-year-old witch that Snape just wanted to end his suffering and be free of the shadow of agony under which he had lived for so very long.
Suffering no one else could ever know about, and it broke Dahlia's heart as she felt the feeble corded muscle in her chest give a painful look as Snape searched her gaze for something.
Though what, she did not know. Snape seemed void of hope for himself. But Dahlia had sworn an oath when she had finally qualified for the role of a St. Mungo's Healer, that she would do what was right by her patients, and she would be damned to the seven hells below if she would lose Severus Snape this night by her hand.
Dahlia ran a finger along the length of one of the scars on the man's left forearm, and she could not help herself as she could feel herself beginning to tear up, overcome with empathy for the lonesome and forlorn wizard. It was not easy, picturing Severus Snape as someone who could do this to himself, and that was where her greatest mistake had occurred. She had heard rumors that he had loved the Potter boy's mother growing up and that he'd supposedly had a hand in the woman's death by divulging information on the Potter's to the Dark Lord himself.
She could not help but wonder if it was his guilt over what he had done that had driven him to attempt suicide. She was ashamed of her assumption of the man's character, and Dahlia did not bother to stem the tears that dripped from the edges of her eyes as they flowed freely down her cheeks.
Dahlia stared transfixed at her index finger as it massaged the thin white surface of the jagged edges of the man's scars. Before she could fathom what was happening, her hand moved of its own accord and wound around his hand and her lips were pressed to his knuckles as she softly kissed the wizard's scarred surface of his left hand. Another tear slipped free and landed somewhere by the edges of her boots.
Hot tears stung and blurred the edges of her vision as Dahlia swallowed a lump in her throat. She pressed his hand to her cheek, her quiet sobs growing in multitude, and she could feel her shoulders start to shake as she tried not to think of how much pain Snape must be in now.
"I'm sorry…I'm so…so…sorry," she managed to gasp out as she finally, reluctantly, let go of the man's hand, which was ice-cold against the warmth of her skin. She let out a shuddering sigh and squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself to try to regain her composure. She rose from the edge of the bed, right as the sound of footsteps caused her ears to perk up at the noise. Someone was coming into Snape's room.
"I need to—oh, excuse me, dear!" came a faint, warbling voice, feminine, belonging to that of another witch.
Barely stifling her gasp of surprise, sincerely hoping it was not one of the reporters who had managed to slip their way past lovely Norah Jameson down in the lobby, their hospital's Welcome Witch, Dahlia whirled on her heels and had been about to raise her wand.
Though the person now staring into the tip of her wand was admittedly not the person who she expected to see standing in the doorway. Dahlia's cheeks flushed red with embarrassment and shame and she instantly lowered her head and mumbled an apology.
"Headmistress McGonagall, f-forgive me," she stammered. "I—I did not e-expect you."
Headmistress Minerva McGonagall was peering kindly at Dahlia through the lenses of her thin rimless spectacles, the skin of her brow pulled taut and tight with worry, a piece of sealed parchment clutched tightly in hand. Hogwarts' new Headmistress came to a halt a mere few feet in front of where Dahlia had moved to stand defensively at the end of Snape's bedside and tried to shoot the younger witch a kindly smile, though it was strained. She looked startled for a moment but was the first to recover as she cleared her throat.
"Do forgive me, dear, I had thought perhaps that Severus would be awake. I had hoped I would be able to see him, it is a matter of utmost urgency regarding his hearing, information that the Ministry of Magic will require within a fortnight," she offered up, her first words to Dahlia as her catlike eyes flicked from Severus's fading form in the hospital bed and back up to the Healer assigned with the difficult task of healing him.
Minerva McGonagall opened her mouth to speak, looking as though she were about to divulge more information as it pertained to Severus Snape's upcoming Ministry trial, though she must have thought better of it, for the much older witch clamped her mouth shut and crinkled her brows in a frown as she studied Dahlia in silence for a moment. She took in the sight of the young redhead's too-pale features and tear-stained cheeks, and then looked to Snape, who had since slipped back into a state of semi-consciousness and was barely hanging on.
"Is everything alright? Is there anything that I might be able to help you with? I was told by a passing Healer that you were the one that I should speak to, that you will be, ah, Severus's…live-in Healer for the year as he recovers? Would that information be accurate, Miss Hawthorne?" she asked, as she took a cautious step towards the Healer, who immediately lowered her wand and look at Headmistress McGonagall in utter shock.
"Oh, ah, yes, that—that would be me," Dahlia heard herself reply in a voice that sounded entirely too bright to be convincing, the fingers of her wand hand gripped too tightly around her wand's handle for support. "I—I was just about to take him home. He will be more comfortable there, and I can tend to him better here without reporters trying to slip past our Welcome Witch downstairs, Headmistress McGonagall," she stammered, fumbling over her words, and cursing herself for developing a slight stutter from nervousness around the older witch.
Minerva McGonagall nodded but did not immediately speak, which gave Dahlia the opportunity to take advantage of the silence that lingered in the air between them to study Hogwarts' new Headmistress.
Her first initial impression of her was that she looked haggard, as though the old witch had aged five years following the Battle of Hogwarts at the school, and perhaps, in a way, Dahlia guessed she had.
The skin of her brow was pulled taut and tight, the dark purple circles underneath both her eyes indicated to Dahlia that she had not slept the last several nights. Her long hair was pulled back tightly into a severe-looking bun and was beginning to become flecked with more streaks of grey than had been there the last time she'd seen her.
Dahlia frowned. She had met Professor McGonagall in passing once or twice throughout her employment here at St. Mungo's, once when Ministry worker Arthur Weasley was brought into her ward for yet again, a snake attack, and again a few times within the last few days as victims of the battle who suffered from injuries sustained by various Dark creatures the Dark Lord had attempted to recruit to his side for his war against wizardkind were brought to see her. Dahlia liked Minerva McGonagall well enough.
As she stared up at the witch, who remained standing across from her with a kind smile on her face and eyes full of concern, she had not expected her to be quite so…well, kind. Minerva seemed extremely maternal and generous, which Dahlia felt moved by.
Rudeness, impoliteness, especially when it stemmed from her patients' loved ones or people in their inner circles, were things that she could easily deal with and did frequently when patients' visitors would get too testy.
But in her current state of unease and vulnerability, kindness coming from someone like McGonagall felt like a stab in the heart. Again, Dahlia could feel her eyes beginning to tear up as she sharply turned her head away so the Headmistress wouldn't see it.
"Thank you, Headmistress McGonagall, for your kind words and concern, Minerva, if I might call you by your first name, and I will take them into consideration, but I can manage just fine on my own," she replied, perhaps a little too curly than Dahlia would have liked, before turning her back on McGonagall, her way of signaling the termination of the conversation. "Severus Snape is not up to receiving any visitors, as I am sure you can see for yourself, perhaps not until tomorrow, maybe the next few days. Any Ministry official business or otherwise you have to discuss with him may wait until he is in better condition to receive you and is coherent enough to be able to understand, Headmistress," she continued with a flourish of her arm towards his semi-conscious form on the bed.
Minerva heaved a disappointed sigh, feeling her shoulders slump forward in defeat, though she would have to learn to give the younger witch her accustomed authority in this foreign situation. She was, after all, his Healer.
"Of course, Miss Hawthorne," replied Minerva warmly, acknowledging the redheaded witch's words with a slight incline of her head to indicate she had heard her request and was choosing to honor it. She did not blame Dahlia Hawthorne in the least for not knowing how to react or seeming to give a rather cold response.
She continued.
"I do need to speak with Severus, dear, but perhaps you are right. If I could call upon him in a day or two, there are some things that we need to discuss as they pertain to his hearing and testimony. You need not tell me his address, I know it," she added, almost as an afterthought as McGonagall noticed out of the corner of her gaze the younger witch opening her mouth to speak.
McGonagall's lips twitched somewhat, though she fought back a smile, grateful that Severus would be in most capable, skilled hands as he recovered from the worst of his wounds.
McGonagall waited, wanting to see Healer Dahlia Hawthorne nod, at least, and so she kept looking on with her fingers wound around the doorpost of the door to steady herself, waiting for a shift of her lime green's Healer's robes as she turned to look at her.
But when it did not come, and the familiar sting of aching touched at her at the witch's refusal to acknowledge her, Minerva bit the wall of her mouth and left. She would speak with Severus but within a day or two.
For now, she could only hope that her colleague would receive the best of care under the witch's hand.
Headmistress Minerva McGonagall's silhouette now vanished from her line of sight as the much older witch disappeared, Dahlia refocused her attention back towards her patient lying seemingly lifeless on the bed.
She nearly gasped and clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle the cry of surprise that threatened to come out as Snape's eyelids suddenly fluttered open and he tried to sit up.
His black eyes swiveled around in confusion for a moment before resting on her face.
As Severus Snape stared up at Dahlia silently, she was hit with something inexplicable, an emotion she could not begin to describe, as she felt her chest tighten horribly. His eyes were a rich deep black and so dark, and filled with pain and grief, the likes of which even she as a Healer could not even begin to comprehend what the man felt now.
Moved with pity, she rested a hand on his shoulder and squeezed the appendage.
"You're going to be alright," Dahlia whispered soothingly to him. "You'll see. I'm going to look after you, Snape. I'm taking you home." His eyes drifted shut, though she thought she saw him give an appreciative nod.
She spoke to him again in her impossible telepathy, praying the man heard it, not knowing that Severus Snape was a Legilimens and could hear her every thought.
You'll be alright…