He was back before nightfall, his eyes large and worried, and she could see that he would be perfectly frank with the students gone.
"You're no match for Malfoy." They were his first words upon re-entering the headquarters, and she wondered briefly why no one could stop by and interrupt this particular exchange.
"You think I don't know that?" she asked, chuffing out a laugh. "He could have me dancing at his whims before I could do so much as curl his hair." And as she said it, she glanced out the window with a trace of apprehension. When would he return? And moreover, when would they return?
Or would they?
Thrusting the ugly thought from her mind, she turned to face him, her lips uptilted in a wistful smile. "You're the magic whiz. Maybe you can give me a hand with Malfoy." But his response was a grave shake of the head. "What?"
"Amadea, the full moon is tomorrow night." He closed his eyes, unable to look at her. Freak, he accused himself silently, letting himself remember all the names he'd been called, all the accusations that had been hurled at him over time. It would strike him when he most needed to be alert. When he most needed to protect her.
She recovered admirably, he had to give her credit for that. "Well, then, we'll just have to hope he's afraid of dogs."
~~~
There was a moment of silence so complete that for a moment, Harry thought he had gone deaf. And then, with a sound like the rending of cloth, Voldemort, He Who Must Not Be Named, he who had always been feared, he whose shadow had fallen over them all, changed. Long, black magics fell away and the real picture emerged.
The snakelike face rounded out into that of a haggard, once-handsome man, the cheeks sunken, the blank, staring eyes so deep-set that they appeared not to be there at all. His hair was almost completely white, and sparse on his head.
The terror of the magical world was dead by the hand of a boy.
A long, low groan sounded from Severus, the first sound of pain and discomfort he had uttered since the beginning of the battle, and Harry stood perfectly still, his chest rising and falling in great gulps, his face streaming with a mixture of sweat and tears. The scar on his forehead had faded nearly to invisibility.
Dumbledore's face was chalky and pale, but he was smiling, relief warring with grief as he looked upon the fallen man who had once been his student. And as he heard the rattling gasp from Severus, his gaze shifted from the dead wizard to the professor who had more than shown his loyalty that day.
"Come," Dumbledore said curtly to Harry, wishing he could spend more time on the boy but knowing that Severus was very near death. Harry didn't hesitate at all as they surrounded the Potions Master and Disapparated, taking him with them.
~~~
She wasn't selfish enough to try and command that the Order convene at the house only to protect her. In her head, she knew there would be an outbreak, an uprising of the remaining Death Eaters who were not shivering cowards, and the Order had to remain in the positions to which Dumbledore had assigned them.
She had drawn the platinum-maned beast onto herself, and she would take the consequences. So firmly was her mind on those consequences, so vivid was her imagination on the things that would happen to her, she shrieked aloud when a series of loud pops permeated the kitchen, sending her hands flying to her ears.
The first thing she saw was Harry, his brilliant green eyes aged but triumphant, and then Dumbledore, stooped over with the weight of something he was carrying. Her heart turned over in her chest and she cried out without thinking as the men, young and old, laid Severus on the floor.
He's dead, she thought, turning the back of her hand to her mouth to try and stifle the scream that wanted to come. But his eyelids fluttered and she was on the floor in an instant, her heart racing as though it would burst from her chest.
"Amadea!" Remus burst through the doors of the kitchen, the multiple sounds of air displacement having triggered his imagination to the worst possible outcomes. Dumbledore was in front of him, though, his long-fingered, spotted hand planted in the center of the werewolf's chest.
"Let us go from here, Remus. She will need room in which to tend to him." He could see the anguish in Remus's eyes, the sheer terror, and knew it was not only for Severus, but also for Amadea, for the tenuousness between them. "Come."
Harry followed sluggishly, casting a glance over his shoulder at the man on the floor and knowing that Snape had forever changed in his eyes, in his estimation.
"We need to get Harry back to Hogwarts," Remus was saying urgently to Dumbledore as Harry followed them. "Malfoy is closing in, Professor, it won't be long before—"
"We can deal with Malfoy when he arrives," Dumbledore said dismissively, putting up a hand. He was loathe to show any signs of weakness, but he was tired and sick at heart. He needed rest. "For now, Remus, I believe I shall put up my feet—" At this, he conjured a ridiculous plaid footstool, its edges decked in golden tassels that were emitting a light, soporific tinkling. "—And take a bit of a break, if you don't mind."
Remus bit his tongue against the objections that wanted to come as the elderly wizard's eyes drifted shut, and he saw from the corner of his eye that Harry had already curled on a couch, adrenaline gone in an ebb tide rush, completely drained.
Seeing no other course of action, Remus sat down beside the couch where Harry slept, laid a comforting hand on the boy's head, and listened with careful ears to Amadea's voice drifting from inside the kitchen, phrase after phrase, spell after spell.
~~~
She very nearly didn't know
where to start, and the only thing that kept her from choking on her tears was
the knowledge that she would have to speak clearly in order for the spells to
work. She managed to scourgify the blood from his face,
starting there. It was stupid, she knew,
but if he looked better, she knew she could calm down.
Taking a moment to stroke the hair away from his face, she let out a shuddering sigh and started with the gash laddering up his left cheek, healing it bit by bit to avoid scarring as much as possible. No matter what the magic, it was still human skin, human flesh, and often needed to be treated slowly.
After finishing that, she ignored the smaller cuts and scrapes on his face and probed her fingers over his ribs slowly. She came to a large lump, and as her small fingers hit upon it, his eyes flew open and he captured her fingers in his with a ragged cough.
"They… alive?" His voice was naught but a whisper, the smoothness that had unnerved many a student replaced by a tremor and weakness.
"Yes," she said, squeezing his fingers lightly. "They're alive. Everyone's fine but you, you fool." She winced and closed her eyes, unable to control her emotions. He slid back into unconsciousness and she couldn't help but be relieved as she healed his ribs and moved to the other side.
She worked for hours, healing what she could see and trying to speculate as to what she couldn't, and in a moment of sheer exhaustion, she laid her head on the table beside Severus, one hand joined with his, and slept.