A/N- Hi again! I have another chapter for everyone, and I'm loving the reviews I'm getting. Huge thanks go out to Dana Malfoy, Diana Malfoy, Silver Thorn, Crystal, and Brittany. If anyone has any questions or suggestions, review and tell me all about it. I'm also taking suggestions for animagus forms for our favourite characters. I hope you enjoy the chapter! Oh, by the way, I don't own anything but the plot, and maybe not even that, so don't sue me! I have nothing worth suing me for.
Bonds of Pain
Chapter 5
In which reports are made and bonds are cemented
"Green M&Ms," Severus growled at the gargoyle. Foolish Muggles and their candies. He was itching to do something to those imbeciles who had been "caring" for the Potter boy. Safe? There? Potter may have been safe from You-Know-Who, but there was no one to keep him safe from magic-hating Muggles who were supposed to be the boy's own flesh and blood.
"Albus?" Severus peered into the office to find the headmaster stroking Fawkes. The phoenix was trilling happily under the attention, and Dumbledore looked very satisfied.
"Ah, Severus. You checked on Mr. Malfoy, I take it?" The ancient man sat in a large chair by the fireplace and moved his friend and one-time student to sit in another chair opposite him.
"I did more than check on Draco. I found him in a storeroom, beaten and covered in cuts. He's had little food since he left here. What he told me when I prepared to bring him here was far more important." Severus took a deep breath. Maybe this would turn out to be a good thing. "He told me we had to retrieve Potter, and that the other boy was worse off than he was. I retrieved his wand and freed him, and we Apparated to Privet Drive. He went straight to Number Four, and I know for a fact that he did not previously know where Potter lived. He led me there, to a cupboard under the stairs, and told me, in no uncertain terms, that Potter was there and I had to hurry to get him out. The boy… he was almost gone, Albus." There was a hitch in his throat, and the normally unflappable headmaster's forehead was wrinkled with a worry bordering on panic. "I removed Potter and his belongings that had not been burned by the Dursleys. As soon as we left the wards, I Portkeyed the three of us to the Hospital Wing. Poppy is caring for the boys right now."
Dumbledore breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you, Severus. It seems I should have listened to Minerva fourteen years ago. She said he wouldn't be welcome there, and she was obviously right." Albus stood up. "I'd like to check on them and see what Poppy says, if you don't mind."
"Of course not." In fact, Severus had hoped his mentor would want to do just that. "Oh, Albus?" he asked, half out of his seat. He placed a hand on the old man's arm. "Draco mentioned a mind-bond." Watching the craggy face was like watching a candle being lit. Severus Snape wondered why.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Harry woke slowly from a desperately needed, and thankfully peaceful, sleep. He knew that he had come in late at night, and the sky visible through the windows, blurry as it was without his glasses, showed dark skies. Where was he?
After a few minutes of thought, trying to decide where he was, he tried to move. Dull, aching pain sliced through his body, and he groaned. That hurt. As he tried to look for his glasses, a familiar blur hove into view.
"Good, you're awake. Don't try to speak. Your larynx has suffered enough damage from dehydration and influenza. You don't need to damage it further by trying to talk before it heals." Oh, no. He was in the infirmary again. He wondered when Ron and Hermione would be in to see him again. The matron moved out of sight, but she was back in a moment with a flask of bright purple liquid and a bowl of something brown. "I want you to drink this potion and then as much of the broth as you can keep down. You've been starved, and I may have to keep you here for the rest of the holiday to recover."
Harry obediently downed the foul-tasting potion and reached for his glasses as the pain subsided. Now that he could see, he began to look around the ward for Draco, and a low moan to his left drew his immediate attention. The blond seemed to be regaining consciousness.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
{Draco?} He gasped as he woke to the pervasive pain. His blue-grey eyes snapped open to meet bespectacled emerald eyes a few feet away. He could almost feel the worry from the other boy.
~I'll be all right eventually, Harry. You?~ He could feel the pain the other boy suffered from the bond, and it was diminishing. It was still overwhelming to him, despite the decrease. "Did you get anything for the pain?" Harry nodded, staring at a bowl in his lap.
{She… she said I can't speak until my vocal cords heal. She says I had the flu.} Harry looked at him, tears brimming in those brilliantly green eyes. {Until then, you're the only person I can talk to.} Draco felt the anguish through the bond and the loneliness. He had had no idea how the other boy had felt over the summer before, and now he knew why Harry was so volatile on the train back to London every year. He obviously had no friends outside the school population.
"I'll be your voice, Harry. I won't leave." He crossed the few feet between the beds and wrapped the darker boy in a hug, something strange to both of them. Harry's face was buried in his shoulder, and he felt the dampness through the hospital gown. "It's all right to cry." Draco had never been told any such thing, but it felt right, and tears streamed down his own face as he stroked his friend's raven locks. How could anyone treat this gentle boy the way he had seen in his visions for three weeks?
They were still sitting like that, broth forgotten, when Madam Pomfrey looked in twenty minutes later. Neither boy noticed her, and she quietly retreated to her office, where she could use her fire to call Dumbledore. He would certainly want to see this. She had never dreamed of seeing those two boys so close without fighting.
Why is Dumbledore so excited about the bond? Will Harry get his voice back? Will Draco ever understand why the Dursleys were beating Harry? Find out Wednesday on the next chapter of Bonds of Pain! And while you're here, let me know what you think by clicking on the blue button!
Beth Weasley