Interlude: Severus Snape

Severus paced the tiny cave from one end to the other as he tried to think of anything he could do that would help. He turned back to Harielle, hissing in annoyance as he tripped over his tail once more. It really was a terrible nuisance, always just in the way and seeming to move independent of his body. Learning to control it was like…well like learning to control a limb he had never had before. It was infuriating, and embarrassing.

Harielle Potter lay underneath his dark robe, curled tightly into a ball and shivering intermittently. She really was a tiny thing, his robe dwarfing her as she slept beneath it. He was furious with her, angry beyond even words. What had she been thinking?

But she hadn't been thinking. Just like her father, she acted first without thought. And just like her mother, she always tried to do what was right, consequences be damned. Severus returned to his pacing, huffing in irritation. He never wanted to admit it, but the dark haired child really was so much like his old friend.

He wondered what Lily would think of them now.

In truth, Severus was stuck. He didn't know what to do, limited by his form in every action he took. If he was still human, he could have cast a diagnostic spell…but he wasn't. Instead, all he could do was tuck her beneath a robe much too large while he paced in worry. And he was really beginning to worry.

Harielle had been sleeping for days. He wasn't certain how many it had been, the storm had seemed to last for several at least…but the sun had risen and fallen and risen again after the storm had died. Three perhaps, maybe even four days had passed since he had found her lying nearly dead in the snow. And in that time, she had done nothing more than shiver beneath the robes that blanketed her.

Why wouldn't she just wake up?

Severus needed help, they needed help…Harielle needed a mediwitch and possibly a hospital. Instead, she had her least favorite teacher who was stuck as a tiny worthless dragon that wasn't even large enough to drag her to safety. He tried for days to distract himself from his worrying by making himself busy, but there was only so much he could do.

Severus had already set up the eggs in another room he had formed with his fire, dug a nest and a river, burned out a section of ice in the ground to make a collecting pool for all the run off. He kept himself busy so he wouldn't have to think about how close he had come to losing the daughter of his once best friend. He kept himself busy so he wouldn't have to think about how they should have been rescued long before that storm had rolled in. He kept himself busy so he wouldn't have to think about the possibility of a rescue never coming.

It still wasn't enough.

Frustrated, he made his way to the pool and slipped beneath the water. It had gotten cold since the last time he had taken a swim and fire burst from his throat as he shoved himself off the bottom and surfaced once more. Nostrils opened and air burst forth as his nictitating membrane slid over his eyes as he dived once more. Moving through the water was much easier than waddling on the ground, and it distracted him from his thoughts.

There was no sound but his own heartbeat beneath the water. It was dark and quiet, and he let his worry slip from him with each second that passed. Fire slid from his maw, alighting even underneath the water, and heating it with each burst.

Twice more he dived and surfaced, and on the last one, the water was nearly boiling. Pulling himself from the pool, the water sluiced off of him and dried from the heat of his hide as he returned his attention to the sleeping girl.

She needed to awaken soon if she was to survive, and he had questions…many questions that he suspected only she held the answers too.

Severus had felt her panic, as he stood fuming at the cave entrance and she was somewhere out there in the storm. The wind and snow had been so thick he couldn't see anything but white in every direction, and yet still he knew the moment she was in trouble.

Her panic was visceral, shooting through him like an arrow through the chest, before it tapered off to nothing. Then the panic had been all his. Without thought, just like a Gryffindor, Severus had dug his claws into the icy ground and pulled himself into the storm. Minerva would have been so proud.

The wind had nearly carried him off, no matter how low he had shuffled, and several times his strength had nearly failed him as he dug his talons in and fought against the gusts. But he had made it, made it to her. And she was exactly where Severus knew she would be. That thing in his chest, the one that told him she was in trouble, the one that led him to her…he needed to know. He needed her to wake so he could ask her what it was.

Severus knew she had been holding back in the several times she recounted what had happened when they were in the place of transition as she called it. But he had thought it had been something personal. Now he was starting to suspect something entirely different. He was beginning to wonder if she had done something other than just move his soul from one body to another.

He hissed again in frustration as he waddled closer to her once more. Harielle's face was tucked into the crook of her arm and he poked her cheek softly with his nose to get a reaction like he had done every few hours for the last several days, except this time there was one. She shifted slightly, her brow scrunching as she tried to pull the robe up tighter to cocoon herself completely.

Finally, it seemed she was beginning to awaken.

His gaze flitted to the hole in the ice where the light was just starting to bleed in. He didn't want to leave her, but he knew she would be hungry when she awoke, and so was he for that matter. He hadn't left the cave since he had rescued her, not even to get food once the storm died down.

Severus scoffed at himself in derision. He was being sentimental and it was disgusting.

He forced himself to leave the safety of their shelter, refusing to look back even as he heard her start to shuffle slightly in her sleep, and went to retrieve food to satiate their hunger. He refused to give into his urge to check on her once more as he slipped out into the dawn light, and he refused to think about how long they had been here already.

Rescue should have come by now. There was absolutely no case where a portkey couldn't be tracked with the proper resources. Dumbledore should have arrived days ago, and Severus was beginning to think that something else was going on entirely. And it was beginning to seriously worry him.