Disclaimer: Yes, the amazing truth comes out: I do not own Harry Potter. All that wonderful stuff belongs to J.K. Rowling.
Author's Note: There was a great question brought up by Eowyn of Ithilien. Why wouldn't Harry just stop his uncle with magic since it's not against the rules for Christmas holiday (at least in this fic)? My answer is that Harry has been not only physically abused by the Dursleys, but mentally as well for his entire life. He's more frightened of his uncle than Voldemort! (Well, in this story.) When he can see that Uncle Vernon is angry, he sort of freezes up and goes into panic mode, as you will see again in this story. He can't always think rationally, as actually does happen in real life when you're in a dangerous situation. He's never been allowed to use magic at home before and while being attacked, he's less likely to think of it. Plus, even if he had thought of it, he was too busy getting the stuffing beaten out of him to get his wand out of his pocket. Sorry if there's still some doubt about it, but as I always say, when in doubt just nod and smile.
Thank you to my reviewers, especially Firemask and the others who have stayed with my story. You guys honestly make my day. Thank you to all that put me on their favorites list as well. It's so surprising and so appreciated. I've been trying to get this chapter up forever, but something's happening with my quotes and apostrophes. Well, on with the story and I'm hoping this will work.
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Without the fever to distract him, Harry awoke the next morning barely able to move in result of his injuries on his back, ribs, and stomach. He even had several gashes on the backs of his arms from the glass.
After everyone had gone to breakfast, Harry took off his shirt and looked over his shoulder into the bathroom mirror. It didn't look good. The cuts all looked angry and red.
He pointed his wand over his shoulder and aimed at one shard of glass embedded in his skin and nervously said "Accio." The piece shot upwards out of his back, cutting it even more. Harry had to clamp a hand over his mouth to muffle a scream.
'Well that's not the way to do it,' he decided, cleaning up the blood with toilet paper and putting his shirt back on. He would need to find another method.
He focused on walking normally down to the Great Hall. He was very hungry, not having eaten well since the Stenson's and losing any scrap that was in his stomach the night before. It greatly pleased his two friends to see him eat so much.
He made it through his classes, hiding any pain caused by sudden movements and such. He was having a relatively good day, but his mood diminished when they began trooping to Potions, the last class of the day.
Potions went fairly normally. They were brewing cleaning potions that would lift out dirt from carpets and such. Later there would be much joking about how Snape should use it on his hair and talk of slipping it into his shampoo. (Of course the mere thought of entering Snape's bathroom destroyed this plan immediately.)
At the end of class, when everyone was hurrying to get their things, Snape watched as Neville accidentally bumped Harry into a desk, apologizing as he passed, eager to get out of the class. Nobody but Snape noticed Harry's stomach bang into the desk. It wasn't that bad of a hit, but Harry gasped in pain, his knees nearly buckling. His hands gripped the edge of the table so hard his knuckles turned white while he breathed deeply as though trying to relieve some kind of pain. He quickly got control of himself and grabbed his bag. Snape knew something was wrong and followed his first instinct: giving detentions.
"Potter, you will see me for detention at 7:00 sharp."
"Detention? What for?" Harry asked confused. What had he done wrong?
"We will discuss that tonight." Harry started to protest but Snape cut him off. "Now leave. I don't want to see you again until detention." He pointed a finger toward the door and Harry realized he was defeated. He walked out the door and began grumbling to his friends, gaining much sympathy from Ron especially. Snape tried to put the boy out of his mind but couldn't get the picture of him leaning over the desk out of his head.
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At 7:00, Harry found himself entering the Potion's room still confused about Snape's reasoning. It wasn't unusual to get detention from Snape, but he always received some explanation, no matter how untrue or unjust. He approached his teacher and asked why he was there. Snape ignored the question.
"Well Mr. Potter, today I observed something quite unusual. Since when does bumping into a desk hurt one so incredibly much?"
Harry was dumbstruck. "Er...excuse me Professor?"
"I think you know what I'm talking about and I'd like an explanation."
"Listen Professor, I don't know what you're talking about, and if this is why I'm down here I'm going to be going now."
Harry turned to leave but Snape reached out and grabbed his shoulder to stop him, his finger landing right on a piece of glass. Through Harry's shirt, sweater, and cloak, Snape didn't realize what he was doing, but in grasping Harry's shoulder, he pushed the piece of glass further in.
Harry half gasped, half whimpered at this and quickly knocked Snape's hand away. Pain engulfed his body and his knees buckled. Snape's mouth dropped as Harry collapsed, watching him as he lay on the floor gasping for breath, moaning in pain. The boy made several attempts to sit up, but each time he put pressure on his hands to push himself up, he would end up falling right back down clutching his shoulder in agony.
"Merlin Potter, what's wrong? Did I feel something hard when I grabbed your shoulder?"
"No, I...er...I just..." Harry searched for an explanation but failed.
"I'm just going to check out your shoulder and see what's going on," Snape said starting to unfasten Harry's cloak.
"No!" Harry was beginning to panic and tried frantically to get up again, but failed once again as his arm gave out. "I'm fine, really."
"Nice try, Potter. I'm going to have to cut your shirt and sweater as I don't think you're able to take it off right now, but I'll repair it when I'm done."
Snape carefully pulled Harry up into a sitting position, but Harry was now stuck there, unable to stand without using his arm, not that Snape even let him try. With Harry physically unable to escape, Snape took out his wand and cut Harry's clothes from the neckline down to his shoulder and then pulled back the flap in the back, revealing the back of his shoulder.
At first Snape couldn't really tell what was going on, only saw a mess of blood. Once he wiped it away with a flick of the wand, he was confused to see a piece of glass now only slightly protruding from Harry's skin. By the bruising and redness, it seemed to have been there for a few days and was getting infected.
"Potter, what the..." Snape's words trailed off as he noticed the start of a deep cut leading under the rest of his shirt. He began to cut away more of the shirt, but Harry wrenched himself away, scooting backwards from Snape. Harry tried to think of some excuse or something to say but his words failed him. He wanted to just get up and run, but he was aching so much that he couldn't even get up.
"I'm taking you to the hospital wing," Snape said.
"No. It's nothing. I was already at the hospital wing yesterday. I'm not going back. Besides, she would just tell Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall and get a bunch of people involved and that would be stupid 'cause it's nothing," Harry rambled desperately.
"There's a significantly sized piece of glass protruding from your shoulder. You call that nothing?"
"Yes, it's nothing I can't handle myself," he said stubbornly.
"Then why haven't you?" he asked with a raised eyebrow. Harry couldn't think of a response.
"Fine, I'll heal you myself then."
Harry looked horrified. "You? No way!"
"Listen, Potter, here's the deal. Either I'll have to bring you to Madam Pomfrey or you can let me have a look at it and try to heal it myself. I am very competent with magical medicine, especially as much of it ties into potion making. Madam Pomfrey is a much better healer than myself, but it is true that she'll probably inform the headmaster and your head of house if it is something serious, which it looks like it is. So what do you want?"
Snape watched Harry as a defeated look washed over his face. Staring at the floor he said in a voice not much louder than a whisper, "Well, do you promise not to tell anyone?"
Snape paused thoughtfully. "Yes, unless it's imperative that I do otherwise."
Harry sighed and softly nodded his head, still staring sadly at the floor. He began to uncomfortably scoot back towards Snape, who met him halfway, and slowly spun around so his back was once again facing Snape.
Rather than having his Potion's professor surgically remove his clothes, Harry carefully removed his shirt and sweater together, wincing as he heard the sharp intake of breath from behind him.
"Merlin, Potter, what happened?" Snape asked horrified, eyes fixed on the battlefield on Harry's back. There were deep gashes everywhere and many glass shards of varying sizes still embedded into his skin. On closer inspection through suspicion, Snape found cuts all over the back of Harry's head as well.
"I...er...fell backwards into a glass table."
"Which somehow also caused a bruise on your cheek?" Snape sounded genuinely perplexed. The boy's story made sense except for the gash and bruise on his cheek. It also seemed that it would take more force than just tripping to do so much damage.
A thought flashed across his mind but he quickly waved it away as impossible. This was The-Boy-Who-Lived, the one with the perfect life with everyone admiring him for doing something accidentally when he was one year old. That surely would include his family. He couldn't shake this suspicion though, no matter how ridiculous it may have seemed.
Noticing Harry hugging his knees to his chest, Snape began to suspect that there was something strange with this, especially since the arm that had been hurting him so badly was now wrapped around his legs, grasped by the other one to support it. Snape stood and walked around to Harry's front.
"Harry, let me see your stomach."
Harry looked up at him. "You said you only wanted to look at my back."
"And now I want to see your stomach. Now!" he added menacingly. Harry reluctantly removed his legs to reveal an extremely bruised torso. Snape's eyes flashed with anger and Harry instinctively flinched.
"Who did this to you?" he asked forcefully. Harry looked away and started mumbling something with many "It's nothing"s and "I'm fine"s. For the first time in his life, Snape began to feel actual sympathy for the boy. Maybe his life wasn't great in every aspect after all. He sighed and kneeled down next to Harry and gently took his chin into his hand and forced him to make eye contact, at which point Harry stopped mumbling.
"Pott...Harry. Who do you live with? Your uncle and aunt, right? Your uncle did this to you, didn't he? No, Harry, look me in the eye and tell me the truth. It's the only way I can help you."
Harry looked up into Snape's eyes for a brief moment. Snape saw many emotions in those eyes: guilt, sadness, embarrassment. Then looking back downwards, Harry gave the slightest nod, which Snape might not have even noticed if he hadn't been lightly holding Harry's chin. He began to shake slightly and pulled his knees back up to his chest, this time for comfort rather than concealment.
Snape shut his eyes and massaged the bridge of his nose. He couldn't believe what was happening and wouldn't have believed it if he didn't know in his heart that it was true.
"All right, I'm going to help you stand up and we'll go into my office. No one will disturb us in there and we'll try and heal you up." He didn't know exactly how to help Harry up without hurting him and settled on mainly pulling up his better arm. Harry followed Snape into his office and sat down on the couch inside while Snape looked through his potions, finally settling on one.
"Hmm...well the only way I can really figure how to get that stuff out of your back is through this potion," he said giving the bottle a shake. "See, you've left those pieces of glass in long enough to start forming scabs around them, which is going to make it very difficult and very painful to remove. This will un-clot your blood around your wounds so the shards of glass will be easier to remove and will, in effect, hopefully be less painful. It will also reduce scarring and as you already have one famous scar, I don't think you need any more. Unfortunately, it doesn't mix well with pain-relieving potions and therefore I'm afraid you'll just have to grin and bear it until the glass is out. That is unless you have a better idea."
"No, sir. I already tried Accio and that didn't work too well, so this seems as good a shot as any."
"You tried to summon the glass from your back?" Snape asked shocked while measuring some of the potion into a glass. "Well that had to hurt."
"Yeah, it wasn't exactly a comfortable feeling."
Snape handed him the glass that Harry promptly drank down trying to ignore the unpleasant taste. The wounds on his back began to lose any numbness still present and he once again remembered the pain he felt that first night. He began to feel blood dripping down his back. Snape sat down next to him with tweezers and a beaker. Harry positioned himself so his back was facing the professor.
Snape looked worriedly at his student. The sooner this was over the better, the boy seemed to be losing a lot of blood as even the cuts without glass in them had opened back up. 'Here goes,' he thought to himself and picked a random piece of glass to begin with.
"All right, I'm going to start now. This will hurt."
Harry nodded his head and took a deep breath. Snape latched the tweezers onto the protruding bit and pulled fast, hoping to get it over with soon. Harry let out a cry of pain and slapped a hand over his mouth to muffle it. Snape could see his whole body tense and wasn't surprised, as the piece of glass had been much bigger than he had expected. He dropped the glass into he beaker and turned back to see that now Harry looked strangely lax.
"Potter?"
"Uh huh?" Harry said turning his head to look at his teacher. Snape could see his eyes were a bit glazed and unfocused and was worried he would pass out.
"Lay down on your stomach before you faint." Snape moved off the couch and got a chair from behind his desk while Harry followed the orders. When they were situated again he said, "All right, Potter, you need to stay conscious so you need to stay talking." Snape pulled out a smaller piece of glass with a sharp intake of breath from Harry.
"Talk? About what?" he said once regaining his breath.
"I don't know, what do you talk to your friends about?"
"Do you really think that's a good idea?" Harry asked sarcastically.
Snape agreed with Harry. There would be nothing that he'd like to listen to less than Potter's conversations with his friends.
"All right, why not tell me what happened that you ended up with a table in your back?" He pulled out a slightly larger piece of glass than the last one and Harry had to bite back a cry. "You have to talk Potter or you will pass out and I'll have to take you to Madam Pomfrey."
"Fine. I snuck out the night before I came back and got caught." Snape pulled out another one with a gasp and groan from Harry.
"Well that wasn't too smart then. What were you doing sneaking out in the middle of the night anyways? Giving interviews to the president of your fan club?" he said sneeringly but mentally kicked himself. 'Way to be supportive,' his mind scolded.
"No," Harry said with a glare. "I was visiting someone in the hospital. The Dursleys, the family I live with, are in a sort of feud with them and I wouldn't have been allowed to go but..." Harry let out another cry of pain with another large piece of glass and started biting his lip.
"Keep talking, Potter."
"...but my owl came with a message saying it was urgent so I waited until the Dursleys were asleep, snuck out and ran to the hospital."
Now Snape felt even more stupid for his earlier comment.
"Why are the two families in a feud?" he asked just to keep Harry talking rather than actually being interested.
"Er...that actually would be my fault." Another cry of pain.
"How so?" Snape asked pulling out another piece. He noticed that Harry's fists were both clenched and turning white.
"They...er...found out about this last summer."
Snape stilled. "Wait, how long has this been going on? And I want the honest truth."
"Well, I don't really know exactly." He paused to catch his breath with another piece of glass extracted. "It was always smaller stuff, like slapping and pulling my hair. They supported my cousin and his friends beating me up. Besides a few incidences, things didn't accelerate until last summer. In fact, when I got my Hogwarts letter, things got better for a while, I got a room and aside from trying to starve me after an incident in the summer before my second year, it was pretty good."
He didn't know why he was telling Snape things that he hadn't even told the Stensons or his best friends, but when he was talking, he did feel less likely to pass out and, though he hated to admit it, it felt refreshing to actually tell this to someone.
Snape was starting to get very interested in what his most hated student was saying. He would never have guessed about Harry's home-life and was appalled. "What do you mean by a few incidences before Hogwarts?"
"Er...when I was six, my teacher sent home a progress report saying that I was mixing up my "d"s and my "b"s. My uncle had already been having a bad day and when I was working on getting the letters right, he took my pencil and stabbed it into my forearm. It's actually kind of funny, you can still see the lead in there." Sure enough, when Harry pointed it out, Snape could see a dark spot under his skin. "When I was eight, my aunt hit me in the back of the head with the frying pan hard enough to give me a concussion. They made me walk to the doctor's office with a story about falling off the jungle gym, but he was suspicious which stopped my aunt and uncle from doing anything to me for a while."
"Merlin...and what do you mean about getting a room, where did you sleep before?"
"Er...in the cupboard under the stairs."
"You grew up in a cupboard? That must've been...er...cramped," Snape said unsure of really what to say. He had never dealt with anything like this before.
"Not as much as now." At Snape's questioning glance he explained. "I'm back in there again." There was a pause as Snape pulled out another one, leaving Harry to catch his breath and Snape to try to get over the shock of what he was hearing. By the glazed look in Harry's eyes, he probably wasn't fully aware that he was spilling his life story to his most hated professor, but then again who could blame him?
"All right, we have one more left now, the one in your shoulder. Now, it's in there pretty deep and so it'll probably be pretty painful."
"Oh goody, best for last. Let's get this over with then." Snape latched on the tweezers as Harry took a deep breath and winced in anticipation. Snape yanked as hard as he could, thinking "the faster the better" and pulled out the last piece of glass.
Harry couldn't even breathe as pain shot through his shoulder let alone scream out the anguish he felt inside. The world began to sway and Harry felt like he was going to fall despite the fact that he was already lying down. Everything began to blur and he knew he was going to lose consciousness.
When Harry didn't make any sound, Snape quickly rolled him over onto his side to meet the boy's unfocused eyes that were opening and closing as if he was trying to stay conscious.
"Come on Potter, you just need to stay awake enough to drink the antidote," Snape called to him shaking his shoulders slightly, which seemed to bring him back a little. He sat Harry up and leaned him against the back of the couch while he quickly grabbed the antidote to the un-clotting potion and held it out to Harry. He hoped the boy would be able to drink it on his own as Snape would rather drink a potion made by Neville Longbottom than to be remembered as feeding Harry Potter. Luckily, Harry weakly took the cup and shakily drank down the potion.
As the potion went down his throat, Harry could feel the pain ebbing away along with the dizziness and blurriness. He figured the potions master must have mixed in a pain-relieving potion with the antidote.
"All right, the bleeding will slow down now, but I'm afraid you're going to have to let those cuts heal the slow way. I'm going to probably have to use magic on your front and no one's body can take too much magic." Harry nodded weakly. This whole ordeal was taking a lot out of him.
"So what's wrong with your chest? Is it just bruised? It seems too dark to just be bruised though."
"Er, I think some of my ribs might be broken."
"Oh? How's that?"
"Well, they got stepped on and I heard some cracks," he said looking away with a tired expression. Snape almost found it humorous how Harry made it sound like someone was just walking down the street and his body just happened to get in the way. Who was he trying to kid? Snape sighed.
"All right, well, that's easier then. They actually have specific spells for broken bones. Of course, ribs are more difficult than some, but here we go anyway." Snape pulled out his wand and with a wave muttered, "Skelasis Heolin."
With that Harry was better able to breathe than he had in days. He took a deep breath just to enjoy the absence of stabbing pains in his chest. Snape also shot a general healing spell at Harry's stomach that cleared up much of the bruising. "All right, Potter, is there anything else wrong? And I suggest you tell me the truth."
"No sir, that's all," Harry said, pulling his now fixed shirt back on.
"Well the minor injuries will have to heal on their own, but I'll give you a vial of pain-relieving potion, but don't take it more than three times a day. One sip at a time should suffice."
Finally Harry was again fully dressed and with the vial of potion, walked out of the office followed by Snape. At the door of the classroom, he turned around and looked into his professor's eyes. It was a reluctant gaze but Harry felt it was necessary. "Thank you, Professor," Harry said with sincerity and then turned to walk out the door.
"Wait, Potter," Snape called. "What are you going to do about this?"
Harry just looked at him confusedly and then turned little panicky. "You're not going to tell anyone, right?"
"I promised I wouldn't but you need to. It's just going to get worse."
"I'll think about it, sir," Harry said without any intention of doing so and left the classroom, closing the door behind him.
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A/N: Just a quick note about the lead thing in Harry's arm. That actually happened to my brother! When he was about 9, this girl who probably fancied him stabbed him in the back with a pencil in the middle of class! Now he has a dark spot there and you can see the lead still under there. It's really strange, but he says it doesn't hurt or anything when you press on it.
Also, just F.Y.I. this isn't going to end up as a Snape wants to be Harry's father type fic, even though I think most of those are absolutely brilliant. He's not going to become Harry's confidant or become a saint or anything, he's just seeing that there might be another side to his least favorite student, and as any human being would, is worried about a kid in such a horrible home environment.
Author's Note: There was a great question brought up by Eowyn of Ithilien. Why wouldn't Harry just stop his uncle with magic since it's not against the rules for Christmas holiday (at least in this fic)? My answer is that Harry has been not only physically abused by the Dursleys, but mentally as well for his entire life. He's more frightened of his uncle than Voldemort! (Well, in this story.) When he can see that Uncle Vernon is angry, he sort of freezes up and goes into panic mode, as you will see again in this story. He can't always think rationally, as actually does happen in real life when you're in a dangerous situation. He's never been allowed to use magic at home before and while being attacked, he's less likely to think of it. Plus, even if he had thought of it, he was too busy getting the stuffing beaten out of him to get his wand out of his pocket. Sorry if there's still some doubt about it, but as I always say, when in doubt just nod and smile.
Thank you to my reviewers, especially Firemask and the others who have stayed with my story. You guys honestly make my day. Thank you to all that put me on their favorites list as well. It's so surprising and so appreciated. I've been trying to get this chapter up forever, but something's happening with my quotes and apostrophes. Well, on with the story and I'm hoping this will work.
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Without the fever to distract him, Harry awoke the next morning barely able to move in result of his injuries on his back, ribs, and stomach. He even had several gashes on the backs of his arms from the glass.
After everyone had gone to breakfast, Harry took off his shirt and looked over his shoulder into the bathroom mirror. It didn't look good. The cuts all looked angry and red.
He pointed his wand over his shoulder and aimed at one shard of glass embedded in his skin and nervously said "Accio." The piece shot upwards out of his back, cutting it even more. Harry had to clamp a hand over his mouth to muffle a scream.
'Well that's not the way to do it,' he decided, cleaning up the blood with toilet paper and putting his shirt back on. He would need to find another method.
He focused on walking normally down to the Great Hall. He was very hungry, not having eaten well since the Stenson's and losing any scrap that was in his stomach the night before. It greatly pleased his two friends to see him eat so much.
He made it through his classes, hiding any pain caused by sudden movements and such. He was having a relatively good day, but his mood diminished when they began trooping to Potions, the last class of the day.
Potions went fairly normally. They were brewing cleaning potions that would lift out dirt from carpets and such. Later there would be much joking about how Snape should use it on his hair and talk of slipping it into his shampoo. (Of course the mere thought of entering Snape's bathroom destroyed this plan immediately.)
At the end of class, when everyone was hurrying to get their things, Snape watched as Neville accidentally bumped Harry into a desk, apologizing as he passed, eager to get out of the class. Nobody but Snape noticed Harry's stomach bang into the desk. It wasn't that bad of a hit, but Harry gasped in pain, his knees nearly buckling. His hands gripped the edge of the table so hard his knuckles turned white while he breathed deeply as though trying to relieve some kind of pain. He quickly got control of himself and grabbed his bag. Snape knew something was wrong and followed his first instinct: giving detentions.
"Potter, you will see me for detention at 7:00 sharp."
"Detention? What for?" Harry asked confused. What had he done wrong?
"We will discuss that tonight." Harry started to protest but Snape cut him off. "Now leave. I don't want to see you again until detention." He pointed a finger toward the door and Harry realized he was defeated. He walked out the door and began grumbling to his friends, gaining much sympathy from Ron especially. Snape tried to put the boy out of his mind but couldn't get the picture of him leaning over the desk out of his head.
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At 7:00, Harry found himself entering the Potion's room still confused about Snape's reasoning. It wasn't unusual to get detention from Snape, but he always received some explanation, no matter how untrue or unjust. He approached his teacher and asked why he was there. Snape ignored the question.
"Well Mr. Potter, today I observed something quite unusual. Since when does bumping into a desk hurt one so incredibly much?"
Harry was dumbstruck. "Er...excuse me Professor?"
"I think you know what I'm talking about and I'd like an explanation."
"Listen Professor, I don't know what you're talking about, and if this is why I'm down here I'm going to be going now."
Harry turned to leave but Snape reached out and grabbed his shoulder to stop him, his finger landing right on a piece of glass. Through Harry's shirt, sweater, and cloak, Snape didn't realize what he was doing, but in grasping Harry's shoulder, he pushed the piece of glass further in.
Harry half gasped, half whimpered at this and quickly knocked Snape's hand away. Pain engulfed his body and his knees buckled. Snape's mouth dropped as Harry collapsed, watching him as he lay on the floor gasping for breath, moaning in pain. The boy made several attempts to sit up, but each time he put pressure on his hands to push himself up, he would end up falling right back down clutching his shoulder in agony.
"Merlin Potter, what's wrong? Did I feel something hard when I grabbed your shoulder?"
"No, I...er...I just..." Harry searched for an explanation but failed.
"I'm just going to check out your shoulder and see what's going on," Snape said starting to unfasten Harry's cloak.
"No!" Harry was beginning to panic and tried frantically to get up again, but failed once again as his arm gave out. "I'm fine, really."
"Nice try, Potter. I'm going to have to cut your shirt and sweater as I don't think you're able to take it off right now, but I'll repair it when I'm done."
Snape carefully pulled Harry up into a sitting position, but Harry was now stuck there, unable to stand without using his arm, not that Snape even let him try. With Harry physically unable to escape, Snape took out his wand and cut Harry's clothes from the neckline down to his shoulder and then pulled back the flap in the back, revealing the back of his shoulder.
At first Snape couldn't really tell what was going on, only saw a mess of blood. Once he wiped it away with a flick of the wand, he was confused to see a piece of glass now only slightly protruding from Harry's skin. By the bruising and redness, it seemed to have been there for a few days and was getting infected.
"Potter, what the..." Snape's words trailed off as he noticed the start of a deep cut leading under the rest of his shirt. He began to cut away more of the shirt, but Harry wrenched himself away, scooting backwards from Snape. Harry tried to think of some excuse or something to say but his words failed him. He wanted to just get up and run, but he was aching so much that he couldn't even get up.
"I'm taking you to the hospital wing," Snape said.
"No. It's nothing. I was already at the hospital wing yesterday. I'm not going back. Besides, she would just tell Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall and get a bunch of people involved and that would be stupid 'cause it's nothing," Harry rambled desperately.
"There's a significantly sized piece of glass protruding from your shoulder. You call that nothing?"
"Yes, it's nothing I can't handle myself," he said stubbornly.
"Then why haven't you?" he asked with a raised eyebrow. Harry couldn't think of a response.
"Fine, I'll heal you myself then."
Harry looked horrified. "You? No way!"
"Listen, Potter, here's the deal. Either I'll have to bring you to Madam Pomfrey or you can let me have a look at it and try to heal it myself. I am very competent with magical medicine, especially as much of it ties into potion making. Madam Pomfrey is a much better healer than myself, but it is true that she'll probably inform the headmaster and your head of house if it is something serious, which it looks like it is. So what do you want?"
Snape watched Harry as a defeated look washed over his face. Staring at the floor he said in a voice not much louder than a whisper, "Well, do you promise not to tell anyone?"
Snape paused thoughtfully. "Yes, unless it's imperative that I do otherwise."
Harry sighed and softly nodded his head, still staring sadly at the floor. He began to uncomfortably scoot back towards Snape, who met him halfway, and slowly spun around so his back was once again facing Snape.
Rather than having his Potion's professor surgically remove his clothes, Harry carefully removed his shirt and sweater together, wincing as he heard the sharp intake of breath from behind him.
"Merlin, Potter, what happened?" Snape asked horrified, eyes fixed on the battlefield on Harry's back. There were deep gashes everywhere and many glass shards of varying sizes still embedded into his skin. On closer inspection through suspicion, Snape found cuts all over the back of Harry's head as well.
"I...er...fell backwards into a glass table."
"Which somehow also caused a bruise on your cheek?" Snape sounded genuinely perplexed. The boy's story made sense except for the gash and bruise on his cheek. It also seemed that it would take more force than just tripping to do so much damage.
A thought flashed across his mind but he quickly waved it away as impossible. This was The-Boy-Who-Lived, the one with the perfect life with everyone admiring him for doing something accidentally when he was one year old. That surely would include his family. He couldn't shake this suspicion though, no matter how ridiculous it may have seemed.
Noticing Harry hugging his knees to his chest, Snape began to suspect that there was something strange with this, especially since the arm that had been hurting him so badly was now wrapped around his legs, grasped by the other one to support it. Snape stood and walked around to Harry's front.
"Harry, let me see your stomach."
Harry looked up at him. "You said you only wanted to look at my back."
"And now I want to see your stomach. Now!" he added menacingly. Harry reluctantly removed his legs to reveal an extremely bruised torso. Snape's eyes flashed with anger and Harry instinctively flinched.
"Who did this to you?" he asked forcefully. Harry looked away and started mumbling something with many "It's nothing"s and "I'm fine"s. For the first time in his life, Snape began to feel actual sympathy for the boy. Maybe his life wasn't great in every aspect after all. He sighed and kneeled down next to Harry and gently took his chin into his hand and forced him to make eye contact, at which point Harry stopped mumbling.
"Pott...Harry. Who do you live with? Your uncle and aunt, right? Your uncle did this to you, didn't he? No, Harry, look me in the eye and tell me the truth. It's the only way I can help you."
Harry looked up into Snape's eyes for a brief moment. Snape saw many emotions in those eyes: guilt, sadness, embarrassment. Then looking back downwards, Harry gave the slightest nod, which Snape might not have even noticed if he hadn't been lightly holding Harry's chin. He began to shake slightly and pulled his knees back up to his chest, this time for comfort rather than concealment.
Snape shut his eyes and massaged the bridge of his nose. He couldn't believe what was happening and wouldn't have believed it if he didn't know in his heart that it was true.
"All right, I'm going to help you stand up and we'll go into my office. No one will disturb us in there and we'll try and heal you up." He didn't know exactly how to help Harry up without hurting him and settled on mainly pulling up his better arm. Harry followed Snape into his office and sat down on the couch inside while Snape looked through his potions, finally settling on one.
"Hmm...well the only way I can really figure how to get that stuff out of your back is through this potion," he said giving the bottle a shake. "See, you've left those pieces of glass in long enough to start forming scabs around them, which is going to make it very difficult and very painful to remove. This will un-clot your blood around your wounds so the shards of glass will be easier to remove and will, in effect, hopefully be less painful. It will also reduce scarring and as you already have one famous scar, I don't think you need any more. Unfortunately, it doesn't mix well with pain-relieving potions and therefore I'm afraid you'll just have to grin and bear it until the glass is out. That is unless you have a better idea."
"No, sir. I already tried Accio and that didn't work too well, so this seems as good a shot as any."
"You tried to summon the glass from your back?" Snape asked shocked while measuring some of the potion into a glass. "Well that had to hurt."
"Yeah, it wasn't exactly a comfortable feeling."
Snape handed him the glass that Harry promptly drank down trying to ignore the unpleasant taste. The wounds on his back began to lose any numbness still present and he once again remembered the pain he felt that first night. He began to feel blood dripping down his back. Snape sat down next to him with tweezers and a beaker. Harry positioned himself so his back was facing the professor.
Snape looked worriedly at his student. The sooner this was over the better, the boy seemed to be losing a lot of blood as even the cuts without glass in them had opened back up. 'Here goes,' he thought to himself and picked a random piece of glass to begin with.
"All right, I'm going to start now. This will hurt."
Harry nodded his head and took a deep breath. Snape latched the tweezers onto the protruding bit and pulled fast, hoping to get it over with soon. Harry let out a cry of pain and slapped a hand over his mouth to muffle it. Snape could see his whole body tense and wasn't surprised, as the piece of glass had been much bigger than he had expected. He dropped the glass into he beaker and turned back to see that now Harry looked strangely lax.
"Potter?"
"Uh huh?" Harry said turning his head to look at his teacher. Snape could see his eyes were a bit glazed and unfocused and was worried he would pass out.
"Lay down on your stomach before you faint." Snape moved off the couch and got a chair from behind his desk while Harry followed the orders. When they were situated again he said, "All right, Potter, you need to stay conscious so you need to stay talking." Snape pulled out a smaller piece of glass with a sharp intake of breath from Harry.
"Talk? About what?" he said once regaining his breath.
"I don't know, what do you talk to your friends about?"
"Do you really think that's a good idea?" Harry asked sarcastically.
Snape agreed with Harry. There would be nothing that he'd like to listen to less than Potter's conversations with his friends.
"All right, why not tell me what happened that you ended up with a table in your back?" He pulled out a slightly larger piece of glass than the last one and Harry had to bite back a cry. "You have to talk Potter or you will pass out and I'll have to take you to Madam Pomfrey."
"Fine. I snuck out the night before I came back and got caught." Snape pulled out another one with a gasp and groan from Harry.
"Well that wasn't too smart then. What were you doing sneaking out in the middle of the night anyways? Giving interviews to the president of your fan club?" he said sneeringly but mentally kicked himself. 'Way to be supportive,' his mind scolded.
"No," Harry said with a glare. "I was visiting someone in the hospital. The Dursleys, the family I live with, are in a sort of feud with them and I wouldn't have been allowed to go but..." Harry let out another cry of pain with another large piece of glass and started biting his lip.
"Keep talking, Potter."
"...but my owl came with a message saying it was urgent so I waited until the Dursleys were asleep, snuck out and ran to the hospital."
Now Snape felt even more stupid for his earlier comment.
"Why are the two families in a feud?" he asked just to keep Harry talking rather than actually being interested.
"Er...that actually would be my fault." Another cry of pain.
"How so?" Snape asked pulling out another piece. He noticed that Harry's fists were both clenched and turning white.
"They...er...found out about this last summer."
Snape stilled. "Wait, how long has this been going on? And I want the honest truth."
"Well, I don't really know exactly." He paused to catch his breath with another piece of glass extracted. "It was always smaller stuff, like slapping and pulling my hair. They supported my cousin and his friends beating me up. Besides a few incidences, things didn't accelerate until last summer. In fact, when I got my Hogwarts letter, things got better for a while, I got a room and aside from trying to starve me after an incident in the summer before my second year, it was pretty good."
He didn't know why he was telling Snape things that he hadn't even told the Stensons or his best friends, but when he was talking, he did feel less likely to pass out and, though he hated to admit it, it felt refreshing to actually tell this to someone.
Snape was starting to get very interested in what his most hated student was saying. He would never have guessed about Harry's home-life and was appalled. "What do you mean by a few incidences before Hogwarts?"
"Er...when I was six, my teacher sent home a progress report saying that I was mixing up my "d"s and my "b"s. My uncle had already been having a bad day and when I was working on getting the letters right, he took my pencil and stabbed it into my forearm. It's actually kind of funny, you can still see the lead in there." Sure enough, when Harry pointed it out, Snape could see a dark spot under his skin. "When I was eight, my aunt hit me in the back of the head with the frying pan hard enough to give me a concussion. They made me walk to the doctor's office with a story about falling off the jungle gym, but he was suspicious which stopped my aunt and uncle from doing anything to me for a while."
"Merlin...and what do you mean about getting a room, where did you sleep before?"
"Er...in the cupboard under the stairs."
"You grew up in a cupboard? That must've been...er...cramped," Snape said unsure of really what to say. He had never dealt with anything like this before.
"Not as much as now." At Snape's questioning glance he explained. "I'm back in there again." There was a pause as Snape pulled out another one, leaving Harry to catch his breath and Snape to try to get over the shock of what he was hearing. By the glazed look in Harry's eyes, he probably wasn't fully aware that he was spilling his life story to his most hated professor, but then again who could blame him?
"All right, we have one more left now, the one in your shoulder. Now, it's in there pretty deep and so it'll probably be pretty painful."
"Oh goody, best for last. Let's get this over with then." Snape latched on the tweezers as Harry took a deep breath and winced in anticipation. Snape yanked as hard as he could, thinking "the faster the better" and pulled out the last piece of glass.
Harry couldn't even breathe as pain shot through his shoulder let alone scream out the anguish he felt inside. The world began to sway and Harry felt like he was going to fall despite the fact that he was already lying down. Everything began to blur and he knew he was going to lose consciousness.
When Harry didn't make any sound, Snape quickly rolled him over onto his side to meet the boy's unfocused eyes that were opening and closing as if he was trying to stay conscious.
"Come on Potter, you just need to stay awake enough to drink the antidote," Snape called to him shaking his shoulders slightly, which seemed to bring him back a little. He sat Harry up and leaned him against the back of the couch while he quickly grabbed the antidote to the un-clotting potion and held it out to Harry. He hoped the boy would be able to drink it on his own as Snape would rather drink a potion made by Neville Longbottom than to be remembered as feeding Harry Potter. Luckily, Harry weakly took the cup and shakily drank down the potion.
As the potion went down his throat, Harry could feel the pain ebbing away along with the dizziness and blurriness. He figured the potions master must have mixed in a pain-relieving potion with the antidote.
"All right, the bleeding will slow down now, but I'm afraid you're going to have to let those cuts heal the slow way. I'm going to probably have to use magic on your front and no one's body can take too much magic." Harry nodded weakly. This whole ordeal was taking a lot out of him.
"So what's wrong with your chest? Is it just bruised? It seems too dark to just be bruised though."
"Er, I think some of my ribs might be broken."
"Oh? How's that?"
"Well, they got stepped on and I heard some cracks," he said looking away with a tired expression. Snape almost found it humorous how Harry made it sound like someone was just walking down the street and his body just happened to get in the way. Who was he trying to kid? Snape sighed.
"All right, well, that's easier then. They actually have specific spells for broken bones. Of course, ribs are more difficult than some, but here we go anyway." Snape pulled out his wand and with a wave muttered, "Skelasis Heolin."
With that Harry was better able to breathe than he had in days. He took a deep breath just to enjoy the absence of stabbing pains in his chest. Snape also shot a general healing spell at Harry's stomach that cleared up much of the bruising. "All right, Potter, is there anything else wrong? And I suggest you tell me the truth."
"No sir, that's all," Harry said, pulling his now fixed shirt back on.
"Well the minor injuries will have to heal on their own, but I'll give you a vial of pain-relieving potion, but don't take it more than three times a day. One sip at a time should suffice."
Finally Harry was again fully dressed and with the vial of potion, walked out of the office followed by Snape. At the door of the classroom, he turned around and looked into his professor's eyes. It was a reluctant gaze but Harry felt it was necessary. "Thank you, Professor," Harry said with sincerity and then turned to walk out the door.
"Wait, Potter," Snape called. "What are you going to do about this?"
Harry just looked at him confusedly and then turned little panicky. "You're not going to tell anyone, right?"
"I promised I wouldn't but you need to. It's just going to get worse."
"I'll think about it, sir," Harry said without any intention of doing so and left the classroom, closing the door behind him.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
A/N: Just a quick note about the lead thing in Harry's arm. That actually happened to my brother! When he was about 9, this girl who probably fancied him stabbed him in the back with a pencil in the middle of class! Now he has a dark spot there and you can see the lead still under there. It's really strange, but he says it doesn't hurt or anything when you press on it.
Also, just F.Y.I. this isn't going to end up as a Snape wants to be Harry's father type fic, even though I think most of those are absolutely brilliant. He's not going to become Harry's confidant or become a saint or anything, he's just seeing that there might be another side to his least favorite student, and as any human being would, is worried about a kid in such a horrible home environment.