STOP SCREAMING

This is a non-profit tribute to the works of JK Rowling who, together with her publishers and licensees, owns the characters and situations elaborated herein.

A/N: Spoilers. Thanks to all my reviewers.

Varvara Skolnik paused outside Honeydukes as she always did. It was four and a half years since Professor Snape had pushed her through the door, four and a half years since she'd watched him fight off a crowd of white-masked black-robed assailants until he fell bleeding and broken to the cobblestones. Then the Desth Eaters had surrounded him and when they'd moved aside he was gone. If she closed her eyes she could still see the red fountain of his blood, still smell sweat and fear and death.

She didn't close her eyes. Resolutely she walked to the door with half a dozen other seventh years, carefully skirting the spots where he and Malcolm had fallen. It seemed too disrespectful to do otherwise. Half an hour later she followed her friends Liora and Lisbet out, laughing and arguing.

"I tell you it works," Liora insisted. "It's the latest thing. You can reverse even a permanent Transfiguration with this spell. You twist your wand like so," she demonstrated, pointing it at a curiously shaped pebble half-sunk into the ground, "and say 'Novo, novo, lasso mutatio' -"

Her voice tailed away into a scream. The pebble lengthened, twisted and stretched to a crumpled black man-sized heap. A bleeding, broken heap.

Lisbet screamed too and clutched her. Behind them some more exiting customers were having hysterics.

For one frozen moment Varvara couldn't move. Then she ran forward and fell to her knees, fumbling her wand out of her pocket and mumbling a conjuring charm. A roll of bandages and a clean towel fell beside her trembling hands as she dropped the wand and ripped open the robes covering the lean left thigh. Then she was pressing hard on a long spurting wound.

"Lisbet!" she choked, cleared her throat and began again louder. "Liora! Lisbet! Stop screaming and help me. You have to press down while I wrap. Quickly before he bleeds to death!"

Suddenly male hands were covering hers, pushing them away as they replaced them. A vaguely familiar voice said, "I've got it. Hurry!"

She couldn't spare a thought to wonder who it was or what the other onlookers were up to. She folded the towel and placed it over the wound then unrolled the bandages and began wrapping, as quickly and tightly as she could. The boy – it was a boy not a man, a fourth year Hufflepuff who'd knocked into her outside the Muggle Studies classroom once and spilled her bag all over the floor – moved his hands carefully aside for her, still pressing, still keeping the long deep gash closed.

"I hope you know what you're doing," the boy said. "Will this work?"

Gary Eldridge, she remembered suddenly, a pure-blood. No wonder he was bewildered but for someone who didn't know what he was doing he was doing a pretty good job.

"Muggle methods," she gasped. "It will hold for a bit. We need to get him to the infirmary as fast as we can though."

"Hear that?" he raised his voice to speak over the rumble of the students crowding around them, never taking his eyes or his hands off their patient. "Someone run ahead and warn Madam Granger. Someone else run into every shop and see if there's anyone skilled in Healing charms. NOW!"

Varvara gulped and kept on wrapping. It was tricky to lift the leg and get the bandages underneath. It was heavy and she was deathly afraid of dislodging her helper's hands. Then Lisbet was beside her mouth set tight and hands sliding underneath the man's thigh to raise it slightly off the ground.

"Sorry," she muttered. "I lost it for a bit."

Varvara had no energy to talk so she merely grunted to show that she'd heard. She pulled the bandages tighter and secured them. Then she rocked back on her heels and inhaled a long ragged breath.

"Is he breathing?" she gasped. "I should have checked that first but he was breathing when he fell and he'd lost so much blood already -"

"When he fell?" Gary demanded, moving nevertheless to bend over the victim's face. "He didn't fall, he just suddenly appeared out of thin air. He's breathing, all right," he added after a moment, "but his head's bleeding too. Do we bandage it?"

"Better leave it till an expert comes." Lisbet said, following him to see. "It's only seeping, he won't bleed out from that and head injuries are tricky. Just make sure he doesn't vomit and choke."

Varvara was still taking long gasping breaths and tears were running unheeded down her cheeks.

'We did it all wrong!" she breathed. "The wrong order, the wrong everything! And we need to put something under his leg to keep it raised. I hope I haven't killed him."

"Breathe!" Gary commanded, his eyes darting between the distressed girl and the unconscious man. "Don't panic now. At least you had some idea what to do. If it was left to the rest of us this chap'd be dead."

"This chap? Don't you recognise him?"Lisbet asked incredulously, her eyes widening at his blank look.She didn't realise he was one year too young to know. "It's Professor Snape."

A/N The proper order for emergency first-aid is Dr ABC:

Danger – check the area for hazards
Response – check whether the patient is responsive
Airway – check the airway is open
Breathing – check the patient is breathing
Circulation – check the patient's pulse