Here are the next two "chapters". The first one shows how the battle has an impact upon even those who aren't directly involved in the fighting while the second returns to those who were never meant to be involved.
Professor Snape could now remember exactly why he loathed the hospital wing and endeavoured never to enter it if he could possibly avoid it; not only did entering the hospital wing remind him of the countless times that he received treatment as a result of the actions of James Potter or Sirius Black, but also whenever he required treatment Madam Pomfrey made sure he stayed for a long time. She was doing exactly the same this time, much to Snape's consternation.
"No Severus," Pomfrey said, repeating herself for the umpteenth time since Snape had been delivered to her in need of care. "You are not going to leave here just yet."
"Let me go Poppy," Snape replied exceptionally politely as he knew from past experience that his usual manner of speech was counter productive when used on Pomfrey. "I am well enough to leave now. If I leave I can be of use to the headmaster and at the same time a bed will be freed up for the patients who will soon be here." As if to add emphasis to his words, a badly wounded Dedalus Diggle staggered in supported by Lavender Brown. Four of Madam Pomfrey's new assistants quickly moved to help Lavender carry him to the nearest unoccupied bed. The four first years, acting as Pomfrey had told them when they arrived to help her, immediately began to treat their patient as best they could with the simple remedies they were permitted to use unsupervised. As soon as Lavender saw that Diggle was being cared for as well as was possible under the circumstances, she left the infirmary as quickly as she possibly could, running to return to the battle.
"I've told you several times Severus," Pomfrey responded very calmly. "You are not yet well enough to leave here." Snape bristled at this, but wisely kept quiet. "If the headmaster asks for you or if Death Eaters get near to here," Pomfrey continued, "I might consider letting you leave, but right now you are in no condition to wade in to the thick of the fighting as I'm sure you would love to do. Now, stop demanding that I let you leave every fifteen minutes and let me get back to my patients. And if you're that desperate to be of use, why not put your Potions training to use and ease my workload by helping heal these people. Right now Sybill's my only adult assistant and she's of only limited help to me." Pomfrey gestured first at the Divination teacher who was doing little more to help than the first years, then to the injured witches and wizards who were beginning to fill the hospital's beds much too quickly for anybody's liking before moving to help her assistants with the newly arrived Diggle.
Snape decided to do exactly as Pomfrey had suggested. If helping her meant that he was likely to get out of the hospital wing quicker he was more than willing to do so. It also gave him the chance to get out of bed and to actually be of use. Snape got up slightly gingerly, the effects of his treatment at the hands of Voldemort and the Death Eaters still apparent and showing why Madam Pomfrey was still reluctant to release him. He limped slightly as he walked over to the nearest bed. Much to his disgust, when he looked in to the bed he found the large figure of Dudley Dursley sleeping as if nothing was wrong with the world. He allowed Dudley to continue sleeping then moved on to the next patient, the sneer on his face showing quite clearly what he thought of the sleeping Muggle. The next bed along from Dudley contained another sleeping patient. This one, however, slept not as the result of laziness, which Snape was convinced was the reason Dudley was asleep, but because he had been given a Dreamless Sleep Potion. The patient was in fact one of the Death Eaters who had been captured due to Professor Sprout's actions. Madam Pomfrey had completely refused to restrain the Death Eaters, feeling that such precautions were completely unnecessary. Despite this, she had been persuaded that it would be too dangerous to simply let them recover from their wounds, so she gave each Death Eater the potion and planned to repeatedly dose them with it until the battle was resolved one way or the other.
Snape continued his patrol of the hospital, helping the first year students (especially the Slytherins, naturally) whenever he felt that they needed his assistance. He completely ignored each Death Eater aside from making sure that they were truly sleeping since he felt there was no point in treating the enemy. If it were left up to him, all the injured Death Eaters would have been left to die if they weren't helped on their way, but he knew there was no point voicing this belief as Madam Pomfrey would treat everybody, irrespective of what they had done, and that unless it truly became necessary to ignore them so that more care could be provided to their own wounded Dumbledore would completely support her. Snape also ignored Mr and Mrs Granger when he went past them, judging that they didn't urgently need his assistance and that they were making as good progress as could be expected. Mrs Granger had come through her ordeal remarkably well and she was now trying to help her husband remember everything that he had forgotten, though so far with only limited success.
It took Snape quite a while to realise that he was being followed around the hospital. When he did realise he cursed under his breath and chastised himself for not noticing earlier as he prided himself on being observant. He turned around and confronted his shadow. "What are you doing?" he demanded belligerently, making it as clear as he could that if he didn't like the response there would be consequences.
"Following you," replied the still slightly croaky voice of Petunia Dursley.
"I can see that," Snape responded in a manner that made clear his irritation at the fact that he was being followed. "What I want to know," he continued very sarcastically, "is why you were following me."
"Aside from that woman, you're the only one here who seems to know what you're doing," Petunia said. "I don't understand exactly what's going on, but people keep turning up here injured and you're doing something to help them. I can't just lie in bed all day, so I followed you trying to see if there's anything I can do to help." Petunia's face showed an earnest wish to do something, which in spite of himself Snape found he could relate to.
Snape was not about to admit this to Petunia though. "Muggles," he said, the customary sneer on his face, "can not do anything to help at the moment. You should go back to bed and wait for this to all be over. Then you can take your leave of Hogwarts." His sneer turned into an unpleasant grin and his tone of voice lightened slightly at the idea of Hogwarts once again being Muggle-free.
"No," Petunia said simply, her posture and tone making it clear that she was not going to back down. Snape's face briefly showed the shock he felt at this defiant response before it settled back to its normal lack of any emotion whatsoever. It had been quite a long time since anybody had responded to him with such a simple 'no'.
Snape decided to adopt the attitude he had found useful when dealing with his Potions classes. It had also often been useful in intimidating more than one fully qualified adult wizard. "No what Mrs Dursley?" Snape asked coldly, the sneer once more on his face.
"No I will not go back to bed like a good little Muggle and wait for everything to be resolved." Petunia made a good show of not being intimidated by Snape, though her unwillingness to look him in the eye suggested she wasn't quite as unaffected as she hoped to appear. Nevertheless, she continued calmly; "You may think that that I'm a stupid little Muggle who can't put two and two together, Mr Wizard, but it's obvious that something important is happening. Injured people keep coming here and I doubt they were hurt playing that Kid-witch game of yours. If you want me to go back to bed, tell me what's happening. Then I might consider going back to bed and leaving you alone. If you don't want to do that, tell me what I can do. Otherwise I'll just keep following you like a young Crup."
"My name isn't 'Mr Wizard', it is Professor Snape," Snape responded, ignoring the odd fact that a Muggle knew about a magical creature. He paused for a moment, considering how to deal with Petunia's ultimatum, then continued; "Since you really want to know, I will tell you what's happening. The Dark Lord and his followers are attacking the school. That is why wounded people keep visiting the hospital. Now, will you go back to bed and leave me alone?"
Snape was surprised to see more than a little understanding of what this news meant on Petunia's face. She was clearly scared of what Voldemort would do to her and her son if he won. The look of fear didn't last long, however; it was soon replaced with a look of determination. "In that case," Petunia said, "I have to do something to help."
Snape looked quizzically at her. "Why is that?" he asked in a kindly (for him) way.
"I can't just stand by and let Voldemort win," Petunia replied. Snape decided to let the mentioning of the name pass, knowing that Petunia was unlikely to know how much of a taboo it was. "He won't let Dudley and I live this time," Petunia continued, trying to explain the reason for her desire to help to the intimidating wizard, "and I've already lost enough family members due to him."
"Very well," Snape said resignedly, having decided that if he didn't let her do something Petunia would just continue following him, which would both annoy and distract him with potentially fatal results for the patients. "You can do a little to help me. Make sure you do exactly what I tell you, though, or I won't be responsible for the consequences." Snape concluded his ominous speech by scowling in Petunia's direction then swirling around and stalking over to the next patient, Petunia trailing in his wake.
Snape and Petunia continued making their rounds of the infirmary, Petunia assisting Snape in the same way that the first year students were helping Madam Pomfrey; she fetched the potions that Snape said were needed to help the patients and helped administer them. Frequently they were interrupted by new arrivals. Often the new patients were only slightly injured, taking advantage of a lull in the battle to get their cuts and scrapes healed; others, slightly more seriously wounded, were helped to the infirmary by their comrades. These patients normally stayed only long enough for their most serious injuries to be dealt with before they returned to the battle. The least frequent patients, fortunately, were those who in urgent need of attention, without which they would certainly die. Whenever such a critical patient arrived, Madam Pomfrey left whichever patient she was dealing with to her assistants in order to give her new patient a better chance of survival.
While Madam Pomfrey was dealing with one such critical patient, the four NEWT Defence students burst into the hospital carrying the two bitten students. "We need help with these two quickly," Lisa Turpin said as she and Sally-Anne Perks helped their injured classmate in to the nearest bed. Lilith Moon and Stephen Cornfoot were doing the same with the other wounded student when Snape and Petunia came over to help them as best they could. Snape briefly examined her still form, before shaking his head. "Put her down," he said quietly. "It's too late for us to do anything for her."
"Are you sure?" Stephen asked.
"Yes I'm sure," Snape responded, his usual biting sarcasm noticeably absent. "I've seen too many dead and dying people not to recognise another one." He turned to examine the other student. This time, he drew his wand and muttered a spell which caused the patient to cease his writhing before turning to Petunia and saying "I need you to get a potion for me. Go into Madam Pomfrey's office and bring back a yellow liquid." He indicated a door on the opposite side of the hospital so Petunia would know where to go.
"Will there be only the one potion?" Petunia asked.
"I've only made the one yellow potion for the hospital," Snape answered, indicating to the students how they could help him while he spoke. "The potion I want should have 'Universal Anti-venom' written on it. Get it and get back here as soon as possible."
Petunia set off to Madam Pomfrey's office at a run, weaving between the beds, patients and first year students as she crossed the room. She entered the office then a minute later she returned, moving more steadily so as not to take any chances with the beaker of yellow liquid that she carried. "Good," Snape said when she returned. He took the potion from her and poured a large amount of it down the throat of his patient. The patient, still held immobile, had a near instant reaction, he started choking and trying to vomit the potion back up. "Hold his mouth closed!" he ordered the students who instantly moved to obey. "He must swallow the potion if he's going to survive." It took nearly a minute for the injured student's reaction to abate, during which time Madam Pomfrey finished dealing with her other patient and came over to see the newest entrant to the hospital. She had a quick word with Snape about the treatment before nodding her head.
"You've done everything you can for him, Severus," Pomfrey said, her face tired. "I'm glad you've helped me care for all these patients. Now, though, I need you to do something else."
"What do you need?" Snape asked tiredly, the effort of dealing with the many patients who had entered the hospital as clear in his voice as it was on Pomfrey's face.
"The Universal Anti-venom is quickly being exhausted by all the snake bite cases we've had to deal with. I'm going to need more before the day is finished. I need some more Blood-Replenishing Potion too, and more Dreamless Sleep Potion. I'm reluctant to ask since I still don't believe you should really be leaving here, but can you make some more for me?" Pomfrey's body language and style of speech showed that she knew she was asking a lot of Snape, but that she absolutely had to ask.
"I will brew the potions, but it will take at least an hour." Snape's tone of voice as he replied showed that he was less than keen to be making potions while a battle raged, but that he would do what she asked. "I'll need help though. Turpin, come with me." Lisa appeared startled and less than pleased to be named by Snape as his assistant, but she made no move to disobey him. "And I suppose you will want to follow me too," he said sarcastically to Petunia. When she nodded, he continued. "Well come along then. The sooner we get this done the sooner we can get back here. Snape left the infirmary with Lisa Turpin and Petunia following him. Behind them, Madam Pomfrey told the remaining three seventh years how they could help then went back to caring or the injured