AN: Sorry for the long wait, I am afraid people might be a bit disappointed with this chapter but never fear the next chapter will be more interesting I promise!!!


Chapter 2: Healing

"I am the hawk and there's blood on my feathers;
But time is still turning, they soon will be dry;"


It had taken a horribly excessive period of time in the opinion of the Head Healer of Escillion School of Magic, the known leader of medical schools in the entirety of magical Europe Dillon Lievens to stabilize the his mysterious patient.

His patient was of course a spontaneous visitor to the Snape Family ballroom who had in his humble opinion, extremely good luck to have arrived when he did. In the middle of an open social gathering, rather than any other time of the year. Generally the Snape Household was closed off during the year to the public with approved guests (other dark families) and pre-approved visits from important members of the Ministry being the only non-Snape's allowed on the property. Snape Manor like many of the old pureblood manors was generally unsociable to unexpected visitors and unapproved guests, to say the very least. It was not uncommon for people who accidentally, or purposefully, found their way onto these sorts of estates to never be seen or heard from again. But as the Ministry couldn't actually prove anything there was nothing that could be done about it. The old families of course were also afforded a great deal of protection from the Wizengamot.

The fact was that the boy was so extensively damaged that he was thankful for the fact he could still identify quickly that he actually was a boy. What had managed to shock Healer Lievens was the fact that the boy was nearly as bad off as he looked, and with the amount of blood around, that was extremely bad. What was shocking though was that injuries that involved extensive bleeding, such as this one usually looked a lot worse than they actually were. There was also the fact that his blood clotting charms, standard practice and usually extremely effective were not working as well as they should be, in fact nothing he had used on the lad so far had worked as well as it should. This had forced him to rely on muggle methods to slow and stop the blood flow of the most serious wounds, he had been forced to send several guests off to find sheets that could be torn up and used as bandages so that he could stabilize his patient enough to move off the ballroom floor and come up with better solutions to the problems his patient was having with his treatment.

Dillon barely managed to form a thought of what he wanted to do before he was halfway through performing it. Incantations flowed easily from his thoughts to his mouth to his hand and wand from years of practice and not once did his spells have no effect on his patient. Though none were working optimally either.

Through long years of experience Dillon had found he was able to spell cast, think and listen to his surroundings. Thus he was able to speculate about his patient and listen to the speculations of the guests.

He gathered from the wild speculation of the Snape family guests, of whom there were many that common opinion rested with an apparition accident or a misspelled portkey.

Healer Lievens, busy with his patient, didn't bothering correcting them or for that matter put an end to their inane chatter even if he was sorely tempted.

Knowing that the knowledge would only further fuel their speculations to more epic proportions he kept his silence. And decided not to mention the fact that the boy's injuries negated either possibility. They were too extensive for apparition with the charm having in built safeguards to prevent any bleeding or lacerations, and a misspelled portkey would have limited the damage to the stomach area. And even a misspelled portkey left evidence behind.

Normally an even-tempered man he tended to rule his ward with not one but two iron fists. He believed that silence was beneficial to the healing process and as a result silence not unlike that of a library was enforced. It was unfortunate that he could not enforce that rule now, but seeing as he was a guest and they were also guests he had no more right to be there than they did. Snape word was law in this house and he had no authority to contradict it and since no Snape had said contrary the guests would stay until they felt like leaving.

Dillon supposed it also helped that this gathering was, more, public than the usual Snape balls, which of course he would not ever have a chance at being invited to. The only reason he was here tonight was because the Minister of Magic's nephew Michael Jameson had announced his engagement to the eldest of the Snape daughters. He had overseen the Jameson's families' medical care for over fifty years and thus had a special relationship with the family long before Rufus became Minister.

Of course there were not as many guests at the party as were invited, the estate had a reputation and were not game enough to actually come, it probably helped that the Snape's didn't have much of a reputation for being social as well. But there were still a large number of guests attending, over three hundred, and most were talking about his patient.

In one of the few moments he spared to take a glance around the room he noticed that all activities had ceased in favor of gossiping about their mysterious visitor. Still, he was grateful that his sanity had been somewhat spared and there weren't as many guests attending as there should be.

Various Snape's he had observed were looking decidedly nervous, no doubt

Old Emeritus Snape was seen stalking in and out of the Ballroom testing the wards no doubt trying to find the hole in their security system that had allowed the boy through instead of making him instantaneously combust or some other horror thought up by generations of Snape's.

No doubt it was an exercise in futility anyway considering no one he suspected actually knew how the boy had made his way into the estate. But he could see why they were nervous. Despite the fact people were allowed on the estate tonight no one could actually travel directly into the estate and guests had to be ferried in from the outskirts of the property. For someone to appear directly on the property was, or rather, should have been impossible.

Healer Lievens did not find it surprising that he was able to think about what was going on around him while he was working on a patient. He had realized a long time ago you could not control your thoughts and as much as he thought his thoughts should be solely focused on his patient 100 of the time more often than not they weren't. The human mind is extremely complex and that it is possible to think and do several things at one time. Healing was his life profession and he had long since mastered his art, and thus he didn't feel the need to put as much thinking into his work as he had as an apprentice Healer.

Not surprisingly he was the only fully trained Healer in attendance tonight. The upper echelons of wizard society did not look highly upon Healers despite the fact they were amongst the most intelligent and most relied upon wizards and witches in their society. His patient was also extremely lucky that he had decided to attend that night, and had not in fact begged off as he had in fact intended to.

Being the only Healer at the party remotely worth his salt, and arguably in his mind better than the best Healers at St Mungo's his patient was extremely lucky to be in his care. Having taught most of the healing staff at St Mungo's at some point he wasn't entirely sure whose care the boy would be better off in, they had access to equipment he did not have that would be useful at the moment. He also had to take into account though that the teacher is usually more knowledgeable than his students…and he was finding this boy challenging.

For a little while there the boy had been drifting in and out of consciousness, which was quite surprising. Thankfully the sleeping and numbing charms he had placed on the lad seemed to be working better than the Healing charms and he had not woken as he removed the shards of glass from out of his patient's wrists and facial area. He wasn't entirely sure where the glass had come from but the wounds on the boy's wrist seemed to be healed partially with the shards still inside them.

Healer Lievens thought as he removed a shard of glass from his patient's wrist, that it was possible those were self-inflicted considering his patient had made no serious attempts to remove them. Where the glass had come from he wasn't sure, but he made sure to put them aside to study later in case the boy was in fact suicidal, if he could figure out where the boy got the glass from this time, if this was a first attempt he could make sure he would not be able to try the same way again in addition to other methods to keep the boy safe. The shard of glass had pierced an artery when he pulled it out and he was forced to tear his robe to help stem the bleeding while he tried to heal it. With limited success.

It was difficult to both hold the wound closed and heal at the same time but he managed it, he didn't dare ask for help just yet, he knew those few qualified would come to help once they had moved past their shock. He was amazed at how much work he had managed in such a short period of time.

It was with a heavy sigh though he realized how much more he would have to do.


AN: Initially this was the first section of a three section chapter, but I kept coming back to play with it so I thought I may as well post it and then it will be set in stone so to speak and I won't have an excuse to play with it anymore.

Anyway in the next chapter we shall see:

-A very large REVELATION

-A Fever

-A nervous healer and an imposing Head of Household

-Harry back in the land of the living and in top form verbally and mentally (which entirely depends on you're opinion.

Overall the next chapter you will begin to see the direction the story is to take.

Well that is if I'm nice!