BACKFIRED!

By Bellegeste

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the property of JKR and her publishers. No copyright infringement is intended.

A/N: Thanks to everybody who has reviewed. What happens to Snape here is something of an 'in joke' - not that it's particularly funny for him.

There is some strong language in this and the remaining chapters - though probably less than the situations would generate in real life.

Chapter 3:A SPINELESS CREEP

"You!"

The first thing Lily saw on entering the hut was the seated form of Snape. She drew the obvious conclusion.

"What the hell do you think you're playing at, Snape? What's going on? What do you want? Where are we? What is this? Send me back at once." She was too angry to be scared of him.

Snape didn't answer. He didn't even look at her. Incensed, she took a threatening step towards him.

"You will send me back to Hogwarts this minute, Severus Snape, or I won't be responsible for my actions." As threats went it was rather lame, but she didn't know Snape well enough to know how far she could go. It was easy with James and co. - they were all fundamentally nice lads - they'd never let things get out of hand, but the Slytherin was an unknown quantity. It wasn't that she was afraid - she'd always considered him eccentric rather than dangerous – but maybe she'd been wrong about him; maybe the rumours were true. The present situation had the potential to turn nasty. She calmed her voice with an effort.

"Do you hear me? I'm asking you why you've brought me here? What the heck do you think you're going to achieve by this infantile stunt? Am I supposed to be impressed? Well, I'm not, so there! Impressed? That's a laugh! I've been spelled out of my brain for the last few hours, lying on some scratchy, ant-infested hillside; I'm covered in insect bites, and I still feel like death-warmed-up, so I'm not going to put up with any rubbish from you. Get it? You can take your stupid, sordid, Slytherin scheme, and you know where you can stick it! I want to know what poison you gave me, and how you got me up here, and WHY. And you could have the decency to look at me when I'm speaking to you."

At that Snape did raise his head. His face was chalk white. There was a patch of something pale and crusty which might have been vomit on the front of his lapel. Evidently he wasn't feeling too brilliant either. Good. Lily was glad.

"It's got nothing to do with me," he hissed.

Lily was taken aback. She had been expecting a snarling tiger, and she'd got a Kneazle. But she was too insulted, too outraged to let it drop.

"Don't give me that! Don't you try to deny it, you spineless creep. I'm here, aren't I? You've obviously lured me up here for some sick reason - was it a joke? A dare? Surely to goodness you didn't think I'd want to spend time with you? You've got another think coming! Well? Snape?"

He was sitting rigidly upright on the rough, wooden chair, his hands gripping the seat awkwardly, tense and unnatural. Lily made a rapid diagnosis: guilt.

"Evans…" He said something else, but his voice was so low she only caught one word: 'twisted'.

"Twisted!" she shouted. Disgust re-awakened the furies within her. "You don't need to tell me you're twisted. You're a warped, revolting pervert, that's what you are. What are you doing - building up to some kind of kinky seduction? Dream on! Is this the best you could come up with? And everyone always says you're such an intellectual. Huh! As for what went on out there - if you so much as laid a finger on me while I was bespelled… One finger… This is just plain sick. And you… you're a sad, pathetic schoolboy. If I wasn't so angry I'd be sorry for you."

She could see his shoulders clenching and a kind of spasm crossed his face, but he didn't fight back. Lily was puzzled.

"If you won't send me home, at least give me my wand. I'm off. I'm not staying anywhere with you. Snape? My wand?"

"Stay away from me!" He growled a warning, but, strangely, still made no move to stop her.

"You can't catch it, you know," she shot at him.

"What? Catch what?"

"Being a 'Mudblood'. 'Mudblood scum' - isn't that what you call me?" She spoke the words defiantly. "It's not contagious."

"No, just offensive," he sneered.

"So why have you got me here then? Letting your standards slip, aren't you? Do you know what? It's you who are the scum - you and your bigoted Pureblood friends. I don't know why I'm even talking to you. But look, I'm asking nicely, 'Pretty please, Mr Snape, may I have my wand.'"

Lily moved towards him. She'd wrestle the wand off him if she had to.

"Don't touch me!" The flash of raw panic in his voice stopped her dead. Now that she was closer she could see trickles of sweat lining his ashen face; his arms, braced on the chair, were trembling with the strain of supporting his body weight. From his stillness she could see that there was something very wrong.

"Snape?"

"Go away!"

"What is it?"

"It's nothing. Go away and leave me alone. Just piss off, all right? You said you wanted to go - I'm not stopping you."

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing. What do you care? Go away. Go back to Lucky Jim and have a good laugh. Isn't that what it's all about?"

"Severus, what's happened? Are you hurt?"

"It's my back. I can't move. I've twisted my back," he whispered. The dark eyes pleaded with pain.

"Is it broken?" It couldn't be. How could she cope with a spinal injury out here? "Can you feel your legs? Wiggle your toes?"

"It's not broken!" he snapped. "I told you, it's… 'twisted'. I'm locked. Whichever way I try to move…"

The opportunist in Lily told her that now would be a good time to take back her wand and go, while he was unable to follow her; the humanist told her she had to stay and help. She was too kind-hearted to leave anyone to suffer, even Snape. For all the freaky, sinister image he was, after all, just another hormone-fuelled, deluded, inexperienced eighteen year old, like James and the other lads.

"If you let me have my wand, I'll conjure you a stretcher," she suggested gently.

"I haven't got your bloody wand!" he exploded. "I haven't even got my wand. I don't know where we are. I don't know why we're here. It's got f--- all to do with me!"

Lily believed him.

Smoothing her hands up and over her forehead, she pushed the exuberant, red curls away from her face and eyed Snape uneasily. If he hadn't masterminded this fiasco, who had?

"Well, you can't stay there like that," she said.

"Tell me something I don't know!"

"You don't have to bite my head off! It's not my fault we're here either."

She could tell he was in pain, but did he have to be so aggressive? He was like a wounded wild animal, lashing out at would-be rescuers. Casting her eyes round the hut, she searched for inspiration, for anything that might be useful. The place was bigger than she had at first thought, but that wasn't saying a great deal. Apart from the chair that Snape was on there wasn't much to see: another similar chair and an equally basic bench-table, all of which looked like rejects from an elementary carpentry workshop. Against the back wall were two narrow bunks, hardly more than wide shelves really, each with a thin mat - they didn't deserve to be called mattresses. The left hand wall sported another, empty shelf and a variety of hooks and pegs. Above her head four rails stretched from one side of the hut to the other, about a foot below the ceiling, serving no function whatsoever as far as she could tell. A grey, filthy rag which might once have been a towel hung on the back of the door. The last rays of pinkish evening light peered through the single window, filtered through cobweb nets.

"What is this dump?" Lily sighed to herself. "How did we end up here?"

She turned back to Snape.

"Do you think you can walk at all? I mean, if you leaned on me, could you make it over to that bunk?"

"No!"

"Fine! Have it your own way. I'm only trying to help."

"I don't need your help."

"No, you never need anybody, do you? One day, Snape, in about a hundred years from now, you're going to wake up and find you're a lonely old wizard, and no one could care less. And when that day comes, don't come flying to me, because it'll be too late."

Too proud, too independent, too rude - these Slytherins were the limit!

"You don't understand," he gasped. "The slightest movement, in any direction… You might jar me… I know that sounds feeble, but you've no idea how… I've got to do it on my own – I just don't know if I can. I'll have to… ahh!"

There was a sharp intake of breath and Snape froze as lightning forked through his nervous system. Lily would have said it was impossible for him to look any paler - she would have been wrong.

"Got to lie down," he muttered faintly. "On the floor."

"Can I do anything?" she offered.

"Yes," he said harshly. "Go away. Don't watch. It's bad enough without you watching me too."

Lily retreated as far as the doorway then stopped, out of sight, but still observing him, fascinated and appalled. Snape moved like a Tai Chi Master in slow, slow-motion, muscle by muscle, contracting, tensing, flexing; an imperceptible shifting of weight and balance, until he had progressed from the sitting position to something approaching vertical. His knuckles were pressed hard onto the table-top, still supporting his weight, white and quivering. By infinitesimal degrees he slid a step forwards, first one foot and then the other. Then he was lowering himself, back held ram-rod straight, bending at the knees, thighs taking the strain until his knee-caps finally made contact with the earthen floor. At this stage, it seemed to Lily, he got stuck. He tried several directions, several positions - left hand down there, two hands, an elbow bent, each unsuccessful shift punctuated by that hissing breath and jolt into shocked rigidity. It would have been comical had it not marked, Lily realised, an intensity of pain beyond anything she had experienced or could even imagine. Finally, with a ghastly, inhuman whimper – a squeal like a rabbit caught in a gin-trap, but suppressed, stifled – he let himself topple sideways onto the floor and lay there panting.

"Oh my God! Snape? Are you all right?" Lily knelt beside him.

"What does it bloody look like?" His face was slicked with sweat.

"It looks like you're in agony."

He didn't answer. He shut his eyes and turned his head away, ignoring her. After a minute Lily got up and went outside. The sun had all but disappeared now, and stars were breaking through the twilight. The sky was still clear; after the heat of the day it would be a chilly night. Catching her skirt up by the hem, Lily stroked the soft fabric regretfully. It was James' favourite. Oh well, maybe he would buy her a new one. She began tugging at the lowest dirndl-frill until the seam rent and she could tear off a length. Soaking and wringing it out in the water-barrel, she returned to the prone figure of Snape and handed him the damp cloth.

"Here," she said.

He took it without comment and wiped his face, then made a few desultory rubs at the stain on his jacket.

"I threw up too," Lily told him. "When I first regained consciousness. I felt really awful."

"Is that meant to make me feel better?" he retorted icily.

She chose to laugh it off rather than take umbrage.

"Well, no, I suppose not. Don't know why I said it. Why should you care? So, what happened? Is it just your back?"

"Isn't that enough?"

"Well I don't know, do I? There could be all sorts of things you're not telling me. Do you still feel sick?"

"Only when I move," he admitted.

"What did you actually do to your back? Was it a spell?"

Snape shrugged, a gesture followed immediately by a wince.

"Merlin knows! All I know is, I woke up wrapped round that damn table."

"Does it feel any easier now that you're lying flat?" the girl asked gently. She could give as good as she got when she had to, but she was caring by nature. His breathing seemed a little less snatched now.

He shrugged again, tensed, gasped and dropped his head back to the floor with a groan.

"It still f------ hurts, if that's what you mean."

"Can I get you anything?"

"How about a shot of Firewhisky with a Painless Potion chaser," he sniped back. "No, on second thoughts, make it a double. What? Can't you manage that? I'll just have to stick with the wet rag then. Evans, if you can't say anything useful, just shut up and leave me alone."

"Fine! I'll do that!" Lily glared at him, shocked by the sudden spit of bitterness. Did he have to be so objectionable? But she wasn't going to let him tell her to shut up. Who did he think he was?

"You shouldn't drink that stuff. Firewhisky. Rot gut. Why do you think it's called the Devil's Dram? What're you trying to do - burn off your few remaining brain cells?"

"Spare me the sermon, Evans! I don't need health advice from the likes of you. Who do you think you are - Wizard Welfare? Don't lecture me. Save your cosy homilies for that limp lap-dog, Potter - I bet you've got him well-trained. What does he do - sit up and beg? Roll over? Shake hands? Play dead? Does he come when you whistle? Huh! Talk about the tail wagging the - "

"Stop it! You don't have to be rude!" Lily wasn't exactly sure that Snape was being deliberately vulgar, but it sounded that way. Or was she reading too much into it?

"Do you actually practise being obnoxious, Snape? Do you look into the mirror and rehearse that sneer? 'Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the nastiest one of all?' Well, guess what? You win. Hands down. No contest."

Anger, abhorrence and compassion swirled within her - it was like coming across a newborn rat in a compost heap: bald, blind and defenceless - pitiable, really, but still vermin. Hunched and hurt, the mean-mouthed Slytherin was no threat. She could kick him while he was down; she could abandon him to stew in his own supercilious self-sufficiency. Or…

Fetching the grotty towel from the back of the door, she folded it into a thick pad. "Try this. Put it between your knees. It'll put your legs at a better angle for your spine."

He noticed and mutely appreciated the way - as with the cloth - she simply handed it over and left him to get on with it. No dabbing or fussing.

"I feel like a complete prat," he muttered sourly. "I suppose you think it's funny."

"Of course I don't! I'm not Ja- " The name petered into confusion as she heard herself saying it. Would James have considered Snape's plight amusing? She wouldn't have put it past Sirius to be malicious, and, increasingly these days, it seemed, James took his cue from his friend, at least where Snape was concerned. This could be their idea of a joke.

Moving with the terrible, controlled precision of an automaton, Snape worked one arm back and up until he could lift his head and rest it against his shoulder. His eyes monitored Lily's progress as she stepped slowly round the hut, inspecting, examining the crude furniture, the pegs, the rafters even, and finally stopped by the window and stood staring into the drab distance, pensive and resigned. Her arms, grimly folded, hugging her waist, emphasised the swell of her chest. Snape eyed the curve of her breasts against the summer blouse and inwardly railed against his pain, his ignominious immobility. Her presence was both a comfort and a curse. Had it not been for the blistering reality of her anger he might have suspected collusion - in a plot to torment him, to taunt him with her unavailability. And yet he was the one insisting that she kept her distance. The irony escaped him in a moan of frustration.

Lily looked up anxiously.

"This is a walkers' hut," Snape told her, bolstering himself with the only means available - factual authority. "I've flown over a couple like this on Quidditch training exercises. There's one every twenty miles or so for those deluded Muggles who think that Trail Walking is a worthwhile occupation. They can hole up here if the weather closes in. Or in emergencies. They're not designed for comfort. Those racks up there are for drying their sleeping bags."

Lily interpreted this volunteering of information as a trade-off for the towel. She took it as a thank you, or as much of one as she was ever likely to get.

"I wonder which Trail we're on."

"Not too observant, are we Evans? If you bothered to use your eyes, you'd see the words 'Cairnmhor ' carved into the door lintel."

Stung and rebuffed, Lily clenched her teeth. The swine! Just when she thought he was beginning to talk to her like an equal, and not a member of some contemptible underclass. How could he be lying injured on the floor and still manage to come up with that infuriating sarcasm? Walking back over to the door, she examined the lettering – not out of interest, but just to put some distance between her and Snape. If she stayed any closer she might have slapped him. Outside the moon was rising.

"It's getting dark. Gosh, look at the time! Do you know, we must have been unconscious for hours. What kind of a spell would do that?"

Snape gave her a shrewd, sideways glance.

"Didn't he tell you?"

"Who? What on earth do you mean?"

"Come off it, Evans. Lover Boy, who else? Him or his side-kick, Black. Don't treat me like a fool."

"You think James had something to do with this? That's ridiculous. He wouldn't want to hurt me. You really are a fool, if that's what you think." Lily indignantly defended James, but the niggle of doubt was gnawing at her certainty. That peculiar, urgent message from Peter to meet James outside Scrivenshafts - she'd thought it was suspicious at the time.

"He's not so squeamish about hurting me though," Snape continued in acid tones. "It's never stopped him before."

"That's a lie!"

"Oh, hasn't he told you about his other little, lethal prank? Quite the practical joker, your boyfriend. And I thought you two had no secrets! You'd better ask him. Ask him about the Shrieking Shack!"

Lily slammed the door of the hut behind her. She stared out into the unrelenting Highland darkness. Within her the likelihood of Snape's accusations warred with her belief in James' integrity. That ridiculous feud! She knew it was still going on, old antagonisms fermenting beneath the surface. James detested Snape, she knew he did. But Snape was notoriously vindictive too… No, he was in pain, she told herself, he was retaliating at an easy target. Then again, however snide and mean the Slytherin might be, she had never known him to tell such a bare-faced lie. Oh, James! James!

A brisk wind was blowing up the hillside and Lily shivered, the flimsy cotton offering little protection against the night air. Reluctantly she sidled back into the hut.

"Sent it?" Snape's voice snarled out of the shadows.

"I'm not speaking to you." Sent what?

"Or was it a prearranged signal? What's the matter? Is he late? Perhaps he's forgotten. Or got a better offer. Perhaps he's otherwise engaged…"

"I don't know what you're talking about! Shut up about James!" Lily flared back at him.

"Oh, my mistake," Snape sneered. "Going by the number of times you've checked your watch in the past hour, I thought you were expecting somebody…"

It was true, Lily admitted to herself. Snape was uncannily correct. Part of her had hoped - hoped, not expected - that James would come to her rescue, not because of some shady, inside information, but following a sixth sense, a lover's instinct. She had hoped he would come to find her and save her. Her knight on a white charger.

"What if I was? Anyway, he won't be coming now. It's too late. There's a full - " Lily bit her tongue; she shouldn't be saying this to Snape. She wasn't even supposed to know herself. For months she'd been maintaining the pretence that Remus' condition was still a big secret. Recalling James' string of noble but transparent excuses not to see her at certain times of the month, she smiled fondly. "- full water-butt." Re-editing the sentence hastily, she tried to make it sound sensible. "If you want a drink there's a full water-butt."

Chilled and aching on the hard floor, Snape was shifting his position, manoeuvring himself over with that horrible, mechanical slowness.

"You were going to say ' full moon'." His eyes met hers, challenging and provocative. "What a night for Gryffindor heroics. What do they do - guard the cage?"

"You know?" she asked simply.

Snape gave a bitter, hollow laugh.

"You should choose your friends more carefully, Evans."

"What would you know about friends?" she flung at him, intentionally hurtful, instantly regretting it. "I'm sorry. That was mean of me. Snape? Severus, what is it? Is the pain worse?" For he was shifting himself again, grimacing.

"Leave me alone." There was a catch in his voice which alarmed her more than anything so far.

"Please, let me help you. Tell me what's wrong. Are you cold? Hey, didn't you have a cloak? Where's your cloak?"

It was under the table. Lily dragged it out and began to tuck it round him, but he swatted her away.

"It's not that. It's… Merlin! If you must know, I need to… I need to… you know… I've got to pee. And I can't move… Satisfied? Glad you asked?" He sounded desperate. "Go away, will you!"

"Wait there," Lily exclaimed. What a dumb thing to say! Where would he go? She dashed out to the barrel and fetched the enamel pitcher, praying to the gods that it didn't leak.

"I'll be outside," she told him, thrusting the jug into his hands and backing away quickly before either of them had a chance to register their embarrassment.

When Lily went inside again, Snape was lying on his back, his knees bent and with one arm flung across his face, the bony elbow pointing sharply upwards. He looked black and spiky and brittle, like a dead spider. Wordlessly Lily took the jug and emptied it, replacing it within his reach.

"Just say when you need to go, and I'll make myself scarce," she said matter-of-factly, pretending not to have noticed him shaking with silent, unshed tears. What must that admission have cost? Her heart went out to him. This shame, this degradation and helplessness were worse to the proud, private boy than any amount of physical pain. Instinctively she knew that the kindest thing to do was to ignore him.

Going over to the lower bunk she started to heave at the mattress. It yielded up a stale, yeasty smell like sun-dried silage, but did not feel damp to the touch. Given how thin it was, the weight of the mat took her breath away. It was like a body bag! Her mind filled with images of flattened Muggle walkers, crushed under the mass of their towering, brightly-coloured rucksacks and zipped up now inside the canvas ticking. She dragged it across to where Snape lay.

"I want you to ease yourself onto this mattress," she told him. "You can't stay on the floor all night, it's too cold."

"So? What's it to you?" His voice was muffled behind the shielding arm.

"Look, Snape, I may not like you very much, but that doesn't mean I want you to get sick. I don't care how you do it, but I want you on that mattress," she said firmly.

It was just as well the lads weren't there - Sirius would have had a field day of innuendo with that one.

"It stinks," he objected.

"Beggars can't be choosers. It's insulation, and it's all we've got. Stop sulking and move!" she instructed, careful to excise all traces of pity from her voice. "And I'll get you a drink." She made a tactful exit.

By the time she returned with the ladle full of water he had, somehow, levered his long limbs across and was lying on his side, looking slightly queasy and breathing heavily, propped up on one elbow, the towel again clamped between his knees.

"I'm sorry, I should have brought you some before," apologised Lily when she saw how thirsty he was. "I'll get some more and leave it where you can reach it, and then I'll be off."

"Off? Off where?"

"Snape, you need medical help. I'm going for help."

"In the dark? In those shoes?" He was scathing.

Ruefully Lily glanced down at her feet. Espadrilles were not the ideal footwear for mountaineering. She wondered if he would do the honourable thing and offer her his cloak, but he seemed determined not to make her task any easier.

"And where, exactly, are you going? You don't even know where we are," he scoffed.

"I'll figure it out. The moon's bright. I can use the stars. I got good marks in Astronomy."

"Oh yes? And I suppose you got good marks in Wandless Warming Charms too? Evans, this is madness, even for one of you lot. Don't be so heroically Gryffindor. Do you know what altitude we're at? What if you met a Mountain Troll or a Graphorn? What would you do then? Do you know the first thing about crossing a marsh-bog? You won't get half a mile. You might as well sit on the step and watch for Mooncalves," he concluded, dismissive, ungrateful.

"At least I'm trying to do something," she cried. "I can't just sit here and watch you suffer." She let that sink in. "I'll be a good few hours - you should try and get some sleep."

On the threshold she paused for a mere second, checking the direction of the breeze, aligning the stars, before plunging into the darkness.

"Evans! Lily! Come back here! Lily!"

End of chapter. OK, so I wanted Snape just slightly 'splinched' but well enough to argue… Transporter malfunctions are notoriously unpredictable - he could have ended up inside out (cf. Galaxy Quest) or with his atoms splattered across the entire universe, or re-materialised within a Geoffreys Tube or a bulkhead…(cf. Star Trek).

Is Lily too stroppy? What do you think?

Next chapter: TALKING TOUGH