Oblivion

By K. Cloak

Chapter 5: False judgments

Albus Dumbledore was a wizard approaching one hundred fifty years old. He'd seen the rise of three evil overlords, and the demise of two of them. He'd done a lot in the many decades that he'd been alive, and with those decades had developed his particular personality: kindly, gentle, hard as nails inside, but always willing to stop and smell the roses – to take his time with things.

Currently, Albus Dumbledore was pulling a disoriented Severus Snape through the hallways of Hogwarts with the speed of a madman; Severus, with one hand pinned in Albus's and the other holding a bloody tea towel to his face, had never seen him move in such a way.

"Where are we going?" Severus managed to ask. Only minutes before, he'd been sitting in Albus's office, having his mind picked through for clues as to who had wiped out a substantial chunk of his memory, had damaged his spellcasting ability, and planned, in the very near future, to murder a pair of Aurors by the name of Potter, as well as their son.

As Severus and Albus now knew, that man was Sirius Black. Albus had been stricken at the news, but had taken on a no-nonsense, get-the-job-done attitude so quickly that Severus couldn't be sure what he was really thinking – as if anyone ever knew what he was thinking in the first place.

"I'm going to drop you off in the hospital wing to be examined, and then I am going to break that Fidelius Charm and bring the Potters here," said Albus. He was not the least bit out of breath; Severus, on the other hand, was having trouble with the pace.

"You cast it?" Severus gasped.

"Of course I cast it – who else would they trust to cast it?"

Severus would have shrugged, had he not feared having his shoulder dislocated. The two men arrived at the doors to the hospital wing and came to an abrupt stop. Albus marched Severus into the wing, sat him on a bed, yelled "Poppy!" and was gone in a whirlwind of white hair and beard.

Severus felt dazed, and that was just from the last five minutes.

"Yes, Albus?" came an unfamiliar voice. Severus turned to see a mediwitch enter the wing: she wasn't the one Severus had known when he attended Hogwarts. She stopped in front of Severus, surprise on her face.

"Why, you're not Albus," she remarked. The witch was about a decade older than Severus and rather pretty in a matronly sort of way. She looked like she'd just woken up – she probably had.

"Did it take you long to determine that?" asked Severus, his typical deadpan voice returning.

Poppy laughed. "You must be Severus. Albus has told me about you."

"Really."

"Oh yes. He described you as a 'tall, black-haired man with a prominent nose and a penchant for sarcasm.' You fit that description quite well. I'm Poppy Pomfrey – I guess you can call me Poppy, as Albus has insisted that I call you Severus. Let me take a look at that cut on your head." Without waiting for Severus to reply, she yanked the tea towel from Severus's hand, raked the hair back from the right side of his face and began to examine the large bruise on his head. "My, quite a bash on the head you took, Severus. Anything else wrong with you?"

Severus didn't know what to think of the mediwitch's bubbly, yet bossy manner, and so he simply looked back at her with uncharacteristic blankness.

"You look awful," she said. "Hold still," she said, blotting at the cut on Severus's head.

"Ow!" he yelped.

"Sorry! Don't want to have dirt in that cut, do you? So how'd you get this?"

"I don't remember," replied Severus flatly.

"Don't remember? Well, it looks like someone threw a rock at you."

"Probably. I wouldn't know, I've just had two months of memory Obliviated."

Poppy looked at him with sympathy. "Sorry to hear that." She muttered a healing charm and briefly summoned a diagnostic aura around Severus as she taped a bandage to the side of Severus's face.

"Flesh wound should be all gone tomorrow morning. The bruise will fade in a day or so. Don't take off the bandage for a while – you don't want that getting infected!"

Severus had never heard anyone say the word "infected" in such a chipper tone.

Severus frowned at her while she set to work on the scratches and scrapes on his hands. "Thank you," he muttered when she had finished. "I think I'll be going now." He began to raise himself off of the bed only to have Poppy grasp him by the shoulders and shove him back down. The woman had a will of steel, and it seemed she had arms to match.

"Oh, no you don't. I can tell just by being near you that you have spell damage. I didn't spend the last ten years working at Saint Mungo's for nothing. You're not going anywhere. Lie down." Severus looked back at her defiantly, but lay down on the bed. At least there were no other students in the hospital wing that night – a wonder, considering how many of them had probably overeaten at dinner. Severus was still having trouble believing that it was Halloween, and he voiced the thought.

"Well, Severus, it won't be Halloween for much longer." As Poppy spoke, Severus heard a clock strike; he listened as it tolled twelve times. "See? Now it's the first of November – a fresh start!"

"A fresh start," Severus muttered. On his left forearm, a subtle change was occurring in the Dark Mark, but he failed to notice it at all. Having finally lain down in a comfortable place, he was beginning to really feel his exhaustion.

"So, um… Poppy… what's wrong with my magic? I feel like a first-year trying to take on a mountain troll."

Poppy sighed. "I don't really know. From what I can tell, the memory charm used on you was powerful enough to actually cause minor brain damage. Sort of like using a sledgehammer to crush a bug on the wall – you put a hole in the wall as well. It seems like it's also affecting your magic."

"That bastard," spat Severus. Poppy's diagnosis, while delivered in a friendly and sympathetic manner, still scared the hell out of Severus. Severus hated to show weakness, and now Black had weakened him in the area where it mattered most, and possibly forever. Another man would have cried or raged at the thought; Severus merely seethed.

"Relax, Severus," said Poppy. "Tomorrow, check in to St. Mungo's. They'll do a full scan on you – I'm sure they can reverse the damage."

Severus snorted. "People who say 'I'm sure' are never sure."

"Fair enough," she replied. "There is a good chance they can reverse the damage – although I doubt you'll ever recover your missing memories."

"Not surprising," Severus sighed, sitting back up. A look of alarm crossed his face as Poppy stepped toward him and began an attempt to undo the buttons on his shirt.

"What are you doing!" he yelped, brushing Poppy off. Her hands returned just as quickly, like flies that simply land on your toast after you've shooed them off of your drinking glass.

"Take your shoes off," she said matter-of-factly. "And this shirt too – it's constrictive. You do have another shirt underneath, don't you?"

"Yes, but-"

"All right, then off with that shirt. It's bloodstained and wet, and it's not cold in here." If Poppy's words were choppy, it was only because she was wrestling his buttons apart as Severus tried to fend her off.

"I do believe that choice is mine!"

Poppy stopped wrestling with Severus and let out a sigh. "Oh, for the gods' sake, Severus! I already know." With a grim little smile, she tapped her own left forearm. "Or at least, I know enough. Subucula intectum!"

Severus gaped, scowled, and swiftly crossed his now-bare arms as his outer shirt disappeared from his body and reappeared on a chair next to the bed.

"There!" said Poppy triumphantly. She smiled at him as she moved toward the foot of the bed and patted his obviously filthy boots.

"You – infuriating woman!" cried Severus.

"Oh, relax," she replied. "Now take your shoes off and make yourself comfortable."

Grudgingly, Severus obeyed.

- - - - -

The clock had struck a quarter to two when Albus returned. Despite his exhaustion, Severus's fury at Black and discomfort at his surroundings had kept him awake, staring at the ceiling. He'd imagined a hundred times what Black might have said to him before he cast that spell, each hypothetical conversation leaving him angrier and more drained.

Albus's face and posture were saturated with grief as he entered and dimly lit the hospital wing. In his arms, Albus carried a baby. Even from twenty feet away, Severus could see the fresh, angry scar on his forehead, his shock of black hair, and his clear green eyes. Albus set the boy down; he began to toddle around the hospital wing. Albus himself approached Severus, who'd gotten to his feet.

"What happened?" asked Severus. "Did you undo the Fidelius charm?"

Grief flooded onto Albus's face at the question. "I was too late – it had already been undone. James and Lily… they're dead."

A flurry of mixed emotions rose up in Severus's head at Albus's words.

Although Severus couldn't really care less about James Potter's death, he couldn't help feeling sad that the Lily Evans… no, Lily Potter, had died as well. She had, at one time, been almost civil to Severus.

And Severus had failed to protect her.

"The child – is he theirs?"

A weak smile momentarily pushed the grief from Albus Dumbledore's countenance. "Yes. I don't know why yet, but he was spared his parents' fate."

"It seems highly unlikely that the Dark Lord would begin showing mercy to children now, Albus," said Severus, who was beginning to look very skeptical. "He wouldn't have just left!"

The grief and worry returned to Albus's face. "I know. It's odd, Severus. Voldemort was nowhere to be found. We don't know where he's gone, but it appears that he… ran away."

"Ran away?" I highly doubt it, Severus thought. If he could raise his eyebrows any higher, they would have flown off of his face.

Sighing, Albus sat down on the bed nearest Severus. "I'm going to go back out and try to find out what's happened. I only came to bring little Harry here… so he could be safe." Standing again, Albus went to retrieve the curious toddler from the back of the room and placed him on the bed next to Severus, conjuring up a set of rails around the bed to keep the boy from falling out.

"Are you sure going out to look for a madman in the middle of the night is prudent, Albus?"

Albus gave a short laugh. "No," he said shortly. "But it has to be done. Keep an eye on him." Without waiting for a reply, Albus left, leaving Severus with the Potter baby.

Sitting on his own bed, Severus stared over at the small child, who had stood up in his makeshift crib and was staring back at Severus just as intently.

"Da da da da… moo bip," he said cheerfully.

"Moo bip to you too, you little monster," replied Severus. Unsure whether he should be happy, sad or still furious, he settled for tired.

Harry giggled at Severus's response to him. "Moooo bip," he said again, a string of drool forming on his bottom lip.

"Yeah, moo bip."

Little Harry laughed again, and Severus couldn't help smiling, just a little. He'd never seen much of babies in his nearly twenty-one years, and while he found this one a little too drooly for his liking, he was the tiniest bit… cute. For a Potter.

What Harry thought of Severus remained unclear. As Severus watched, the boy began to try to climb out of his bed. After a minute or two of struggling, which Severus watched without interfering, Harry managed to wriggle almost to the top of the rails.

"Oh, no you don't, Potter," said Severus. Carefully, he picked the child up to deposit him back in his bed. On impulse, he set the kid down on his own bed instead.

"I almost feel bad for you, Potter," he said. "I still miss my own mother sometimes, and it's been ten years. At least you won't remember her – it's better this way. You only grieve for what you remember."

Little Harry laughed again at his newfound freedom, taking no notice of Severus's words. Maybe, thought Severus, not all of the Potters are as bad as this one's dad. Severus allowed himself another small smile as baby Harry took an interest in Severus's hands. After trying and failing to chew on Severus's hands - Severus wouldn't go that far – Harry spent a few minutes fiddling with Severus's long fingers and his shiny wedding band. After getting bored with the hands, the baby moved up to the wrists and then to the forearms, before his gaze lit on the Dark Mark, which Severus had forgotten to conceal.

The smile not leaving his face, baby Potter uttered his first actual word of the day.

"Bad!" he said. "Ba ba ba ba. Bad."

The word had probably been driven into Harry's young mind by his Auror parents, who knew that Harry should learn to fear the Dark Mark at as young an age as possible. Harry himself didn't even know what "bad" meant, but his damage was already done.

Severus stared at Harry for a moment, the bottom falling out of his rare, pleasant emotional state in a split second. He couldn't believe it – even the very youngest Potter was judging him. Harry found himself plunked back into the railed bed in seconds, after which Severus began to gather his things.

That's it, thought Severus. Forget Albus, forget the Potter child, forget Poppy. He wouldn't spend another unnecessary second in Hogwarts.

- - - - -

Severus took the Knight Bus home, which dropped him off, jostled and exhausted, at four in the morning. Entering through the front door, he walked through his darkened living room, only to trip on something in the middle of the floor.

In the dim light provided by the outside streetlamps, Severus made out the body of his wife. There was a halo of blood around her head; she was very clearly dead.

Severus, too tired to care, collapsed on the couch and fell asleep.

The world would be very different when he woke up.

- - - - -