"Come in," Umbridge said in a sickly-sweet voice.
Severus grimaced, then wiped the expression from his face before pushing the door open.
His eyes were immediately assaulted by an explosion of pink and cat as he walked through and came to a halt in front of her desk. Then his eyes fell on Umbridge herself. She was sitting at her desk, back straight and shoulders square. Severus was sure that she thought her smile was 'girlish' or 'sweet', but the pure malice it contained sent a shiver down his spine.
Umbridge remained expectantly silent, and it took Severus a moment to realize what she was waiting for.
"Good evening, Headmistress," Severus said, as politely as he could manage.
"Good evening, Mr Potter," Umbridge said. She gestured at the table next to her desk. "Have a seat so we can get started."
Severus's eyes fell upon the lace-covered table. He walked over to it and sat down in the hard, wooden chair. In front of him was a piece of parchment, the Black Quill lying innocently on top of it. He stared blankly at the quill, delaying the moment he would have to start carving into his own hand.
"Just a moment, Mr Potter," Umbridge said, as she got up from her seat. She walked around her desk and over to where he was seated, looming over him.
Severus looked up and saw that an expression that was probably meant to be stern had fallen over her face.
"Let me see your hand," Umbridge said, her own hand held out expectantly.
Severus reluctantly complied, though he had to hold back a grimace at the feel of her too-soft hands against his own.
"Tut, tut, Mr Potter. I must say, I am disappointed that you've gone and undone all of our hard work," Umbridge said, then heaved a heavy sigh. "No matter. We shall simply have to put in some extra work to make sure that my lesson truly sinks in this time."
Severus saw her reach for her wand, and though every instinct screamed for him to get up, to pull his own wand first, he forced himself to remain seated. He was especially glad that he'd controlled himself when he remembered that he did not have a functioning wand with him.
Umbridge cast some spell that yanked his left hand away from his body, pinning his arm to the lacey table, palm up.
The sight of his palm– Harry's palm– stretched out on top of the table, accompanied, particularly, by the scar from the burn, reminded Severus that he had never found out how Umbridge had inflicted that particular wound.
Severus turned his head back around to watch Umbridge. The stone she was holding appeared to be completely innocuous. But when she placed it onto his palm, Severus could feel the dark magic radiating out from it seeping into his skin. His entire arm, down to the fingers, shivered– the only motion his left arm was still capable of.
Severus realized, moments later, that the cold press of the stone into his palm felt much like grabbing a door handle at Malfoy Manor.
And yet Severus did not recognize the stone. He ought to, as it was clearly a dark object– but its appearance was so commonplace that Severus was having a hard time identifying it.
Severus cursed Umbridge's proclivity for finding obscure torture devices. Immediately after he had completed this thought, a searing pain pierced through the skin of his left palm. It was all Severus could do to keep himself from crying out.
Once he could breathe again, Severus looked up, catching Umbridge's eye as she grinned maliciously.
"Did you have a question, Mr Potter?" Umbridge asked sweetly. "We have a lot of work to do, so you'd best get started."
Severus grimaced and picked up the Black Quill. He shifted in his seat, again trying to delay the moment when he had to begin writing. But when his left arm failed to move with the rest of his body, this only served as a reminder of the searing pain he had just experienced.
Suddenly, the identification of the stone was clear in his mind. It was clearly a modified Ardere Saxo Malae. In the past, they had been used in interrogations, though they had been outlawed around the same time as other forms of corporal punishment.
Severus had no idea how she'd gotten her hands on one, nor did he know how she had managed to modify it so it would burn when– when– actually, Severus wasn't yet sure what, precisely, triggered the stone to burn.
Umbridge cleared her throat expectantly, so Severus set aside his thoughts on the stone for the time being, grit his teeth, and set the quill to parchment.
I must not tell lies.
How ironic that this was the line Severus was to write, when his very presence here was a lie in and of itself. The rest of his amusement at this irony was cut off by an outburst of acute pain on the back of his right hand.
Severus stared in horror as the words appeared on his hand as though they had been carved into his skin with a scalpel. He'd known, objectively, how barbaric the use of a Black Quill was. But the reality was that he hadn't actually known how awful it felt.
Now he knew.
The quill carved into the back of his hand, causing all the pain that action implied. As he stared in his horror at the phrase shining red against the old scarring, the words began to fade away, leaving behind a lingering rawness and a slightly darker cast on the scar.
Umbridge was still staring at him, so Severus steeled himself and wrote another line. Again, the line appeared on the back of his hand, accompanied by another debilitating throb of agony as his blood was once again extracted.
To distract himself from the repeated pain of writing the line, Severus thought back to the stone. He was curious as to what triggered the burning action– though this curiosity was mostly for the sake of being able to avoid triggering it.
He knew that deliberately trying to trigger the stone was a poor choice given the amount of pain he was already in, but he could think of nothing better to do to distract himself from the continual torture of writing lines.
To try and find a starting point, Severus recalled what he'd been thinking of when he first felt the pain. He'd been trying to remember what the stone was called… and then he'd thought something insulting about Umbridge.
That must be it. The stone must trigger when it detected malicious thoughts directed at Umbridge.
Severus debated the wisdom of testing this theory. Then he decided that it was necessary, if only so he could use the information when he testified in court.
So, steeling himself for the pain, Severus thought, Umbridge is an incompetent waste of space.
The response from the stone was immediate and intense– a horrible burning that he could feel right down to the bone. He faltered in writing his next line as he did his level best to not react visibly. Potter had never given Severus the satisfaction of seeing his upset, so Severus doubted that Potter would have ever allowed Umbridge to see his pain.
Severus decided that the two activations of the stone were all the evidence he was willing to collect on that particular instrument. He quickly resumed writing lines, remembering that Umbridge would be watching for him to falter.
As he continued to write, he retreated into his Occlumency shields, building a quick track to guide his thoughts away from dangerous topics– namely, anything to do directly with Umbridge.
He would have to remember to remove them later, but for now, it would help him avoid the pain of the stone.
Severus wondered, for a moment, why the stone had immediately started out at such intense levels of heat–from what he remembered of the stone's function, it was meant to start out mildly. Then he realized that he was in Potter's body, and Potter had clearly been subjected to the stone before– often enough that the stone had begun to burn him badly enough to scar.
So when Severus thought something forbidden, it picked up at the level Potter had last pushed it to.
As he painfully etched out yet another "I must not tell lies", Severus was struck with the realization that Potter must have accumulated an immense amount of pain tolerance.
A quick glance at Umbridge showed that she was staring at him with a dazed, disturbing sort of smile on her face.
Severus braced himself against the wave of nausea that this look induced and quickly looked back down at the parchment in front of him. He took in a steadying breath and forced himself to continue writing.
Disturbing implications aside, Umbridge's expression was proof enough that Severus's behavior was not out of the ordinary for Potter. There had been no confusion in her gaze, no searching looks– just disturbing satisfaction. Which meant that Severus must have been right about Potter's stoicism during these detentions.
For a moment, his thoughts stalled. In the lull, his mind latched onto the pressing weight of the pain in both his hands.
Frantically, Severus searched for something else to distract himself with. Somehow, he landed on the stories he had heard of the scene in the graveyard– and of the pain Potter had gone through then.
Severus hadn't given it much thought before– he usually preferred to avoid thinking about it at all, since he viewed that whole disaster as yet another breach of his oath to protect Lily's child. But now, he remembered that Potter had been subjected to the Dark Lord's Cruciatus Curse– twice.
At the time, Potter had been merely fourteen, and he had not only survived the torture curse when cast by one of the most powerful wizards alive, but he had gone on to duel the Dark Lord– ultimately escaping with both his life and Diggory's body. Remarkably, Potter had done all that after the Dark Lord had tortured him.
Whatever else Severus could say about Potter– and there was certainly a lot– Potter had a truly impressive pain tolerance.
Severus's thoughts again subsided in the absence of any new stimuli. The next few lines felt all the more painful for the lack of distracting thoughts. The effort it was taking to continue to grit his teeth and set the quill to parchment was increasing slowly but surely.
Severus knew that Umbridge would be all too delighted if he reacted visibly. And, if Severus even bothered to ask for mercy, she would derive far too much enjoyment from saying no.
Suddenly, Severus intimately understood why Potter would choose to remain stoic, even at the cost of his own well-being. When no effective action was possible– and any action from this position would seem ineffective, at least to Potter– it was better to affect indifference than to give the tormentor the satisfaction of a reaction.
So Severus continued to hold his silence and etch out the lines.
Through the pain, Severus wished he could do something– anything– to brace himself against the continual, horrible, agony of the quill. But with his left hand pinned so firmly and his right hand occupied, there was little he could do besides clench his teeth.
Once again, Severus sought to distract himself by glancing up. He saw that Umbridge was staring pointedly at his hands with another expectant smile.
He dropped his gaze once more. This time, though, he had something new to occupy his thoughts. The smile concerned him. Severus glanced over at his hands, where Umbridge had been staring.
A moment later, the pieces fell into place. Umbridge would be inspecting his hands at the end of the detention– to see if the 'lesson' had sunk in.
His right hand clearly needed no help. Each time he wrote the line, the words took longer and longer to fade away. But his left hand… Severus had managed to make it this far without thinking of anything incriminating, so the pain had long since faded, eclipsed by the pain in his right hand by several orders of magnitude.
And if Potter had been burned badly enough to scar, then Umbridge would certainly expect to see at least some burnt skin. Severus could not afford to risk arousing her suspicions, so he would have to conform to her expectations.
This meant he had to remove his Occlumency guard and allow himself to think the thoughts that the stone was meant to punish.
As he carefully removed the guard that he had placed to protect himself from the stone, he realized, as he did, that Potter was entirely unable to clear his mind, or use any other Occlumency methods to order his thoughts. No wonder he'd been so at risk to the stone.
With the guard removed, Severus steeled himself to do what he must. He deliberately and clearly thought, Umbridge is a spineless criminal.
The stone seared his palm, and Severus grit his teeth yet again. Once the initial pain faded, he realized that there was an oddly uncomfortable knot in his gut. A moment later, he recognized it as guilt. Severus felt guilty for his failure to teach Potter Occlumency.
Severus tried to assuage it, as he always did, with reminders that Potter was a poor student, that he hardly ever tried at any of his school work.
But the excuses felt hollow in the face of what Potter had been through, over and over, this entire school year. Severus had often heard Umbridge bragging about having Potter in detention– there had been times where she had mentioned that Potter had been in detention every day that week.
Those were hardly conditions conducive to learning Occlumency. A calm mind was crucial to learning the first step of Occlumency– clearing the mind– and Severus could not imagine that Potter would ever have been able to succeed when this torture was what he had to deal with in these detentions.
And of course, there was also the reason that Potter had first found himself in hot water with Umbridge– loudly proclaiming that the Dark Lord was back.
At the time, Severus had scoffed at Potter's stupidity– and Severus did still think it had been rather imbecilic of Potter to draw Umbridge's ire– but now, Severus was more focused on the realization that the Dark Lord's return would have added to the mental turmoil Potter was in.
Severus's internal clock tore him from his thoughts. It was nearly time for him to take another dose of Polyjuice Potion. The bottle was still in his robe pocket; he just needed to pull it out and gulp some of it down.
He looked up and saw that Umbridge was now absorbed in some paperwork. Severus hoped that she was absorbed enough to not notice when he ceased writing.
Moving slowly so as to not draw her eye with a quick motion, Severus reached into his pocket and pulled out the bottle. A quick dart of his eyes confirmed that Umbridge was still involved in her paperwork, so Severus lifted the bottle to his lips and swallowed a dose.
Then he slowly slid the bottle back into his pocket.
Severus could probably pass off the bottle as just water, but he'd rather not risk her disbelief– a serious risk, given the line she had him writing– and a possible inspection of the contents of the bottle. So Severus would do his best to avoid letting her see him take his Polyjuice Potion every hour.
It took a strong exertion of his will to force himself to pick up the quill again, and an even stronger prompting to force himself to actually start writing again. Thankfully, it was somewhat easier to continue his momentum and continue writing lines than it was to start up again.
As he resumed writing, he attempted to slide his mind into a sort of trance where he could ignore most of the pain he was in.
And so the time began to pass in a blur, a passage marked only by breaks to take his Polyjuice Potion and to think the occasional nasty thought about Umbridge.
By the time Umbridge finally cleared her throat, breaking Severus out of his trance, he'd begun to worry, distantly, about whether he'd have enough Polyjuice Potion to make it through the remainder of the detention.
Thankfully, and Severus never thought he would be grateful for this, Umbridge was making her way around her desk towards him.
"Hands, Mr Potter," Umbridge said, holding out her own hand.
Severus stiffly put the quill down, and even that small motion caused the pain in his hand to flare up. He tried to pull his left hand away from the desk, but found that it was still stuck firmly to the lace tablecloth. He looked back over at Umbridge as he tried again. She waved her wand, and this time it worked.
Reluctantly, he held out his hands for her to examine.
Umbridge sighed and disappointedly shook her head. "We clearly still have a lot of work to do. You'll have to come back tomorrow at 7 pm."
Severus froze at the thought of another night spent subjecting himself to this torture. Then he remembered the plan, and he managed to unclench his muscles. He stood up from the chair and took a step back towards the door.
Umbridge failed to react, so Severus took another step backwards.
"Good evening," he forced himself to say, before turning and bolting out of her office.
Severus knew it was undignified, but if he stayed in her presence a moment longer, he was going to do something to ruin their case against her. And he wanted to see her on the boat to Azkaban more than he had wanted anything in years. He would do nothing to jeopardize his chance to see that happen.
As soon as he was clear of Umbridge's office, Severus slowed to a slightly more sedate pace. His hands were in pain, and his top priority was to get to the Hospital Wing. Poppy was there, waiting for him, so she could document his injuries and promptly heal them as much as it was possible to heal injuries inflicted by dark artefacts.
Severus realized that he had no idea what time it was- the hallways were nearly silent, so it must be long after curfew.
On the one hand, this was good, because it meant he was unlikely to run into any students. But on the other, it meant that Umbridge had likely always held Harry in detention for this ungodly amount of time.
It was a miracle Potter had been managing to turn anything in at all, what with all his time being taken up by these detentions with Umbridge.
Severus came to a halt and was startled to realize that he had already arrived at the Hospital Wing. He glanced down at his hands, which were still in horrific pain. He would have to knock on the door with some other body part and hope Poppy managed to hear him.
He decided to kick at the door, as that would result in the sharpest sound. He did so for a couple seconds, then paused to listen for footsteps. He heard nothing, so he kicked at the door again, slightly harder this time.
A moment later, he heard the welcome sound of Poppy's approaching footsteps. The door swung open and Severus gratefully trudged into the– thankfully empty– infirmary.
"Severus? Are you alright?" Madam Pomfrey asked as she ushered Severus over to a waiting bed.
"Of course I'm not, you saw the state of Potter's hands," Severus said angrily. Then he held out his own hands and said, "See for yourself."
Severus examined his wounds in detail for the first time since he'd left Umbridge's office.
The scars on both his hands now looked as fresh as they would have on the day they'd been acquired– which, in a way, they were. The circular burn on his left palm was a vivid and shiny red. The cuts from the quill were still sluggishly bleeding over top the scars that Harry had.
As he stared at them, he felt the uncomfortable process of transforming back into his own body finally begin.
The uniform he was wearing tightened, and in some cases, ripped around his limbs. He looked up to make eye contact with Poppy.
"Let me get you a set of pajamas," Poppy said, then turned to walk off.
Severus stopped her by saying, "Wait– pajamas?"
Poppy turned back to face him, hands on her hips. "Yes, pajamas. Did you really think I was going to let you go to your quarters alone after the evening you've had?"
"Well, yes," Severus said, frowning. "I came here so you could collect the appropriate evidence and address my injuries."
Poppy lifted one of her hands from her hips and pointed it directly at Severus's chest. "It is my professional opinion that your health will be best served by spending the night here, so spending the night here is what you will do. Do not make me stick you to that bed."
Severus held up his hands in surrender. He should have known this was going to happen, really.
Poppy nodded in satisfaction and resumed her walk over to her linen cabinet. She was back within seconds, holding a set of plain blue pajamas. "While you get those on, I shall grab my camera and the forms to record the evidence."
"Very well," Severus said. He did not particularly want to spend the night in the Hospital Wing, but he did not have a sufficient aversion to it that would make it worth fighting Poppy over. Especially since it was late and he was exhausted.
He glanced down at the far-too-small uniform that was still clinging to his body, and then shifted his gaze to his hands. It would be better to brave the pain of using his wand– which Poppy had thoughtfully placed on the bedside table– than to attempt to remove the uniform with his mangled hands.
So he steeled himself and prepared to cast the Switching Charm as quickly as he could. In one fluid motion, he reached down and plucked his wand off the table, immediately transitioning into the first wand movement of the charm. The uniform swapped out for the pajamas, and Severus immediately set his wand back down.
The act of grasping the wand, and then moving it precisely , had not been kind to the aggravated skin on the back of his right hand.
Severus cradled his hand carefully against his chest and sat down on the bed to wait for Poppy.
Moments later, he pulled his hands away from his chest, his mind finally processing a fact that he should have already known. His, Severus Snape's, hands were permanently scarred now. The nature of the dark magic in the quill and the stone was such that the injuries had lingered even after he had transformed back into his own body.
The line on the back of his hand would never be quite as deep as Potter's, but he suspected that it would be no less visible.
The sound of Poppy returning from her office tore Severus from his thoughts. As she approached, she said, "Oh, Severus. I should have remembered that getting changed would be difficult for you. I am so sorry."
"I managed," Severus said simply. "Let us get on with this so you can heal me."
Poppy nodded and set two items onto the ground. A wave of her wand expanded the items into a tripod and a plain white table respectively.
"First of all, I am sorry to say that you will need to sign this form consenting to the use of this evidence in a court of law before we can properly get started," Poppy said, setting a piece of parchment and a proper self-inking quill onto the table.
Severus grimaced, but picked up the quill anyways. He knew that it was necessary for him to sign the form prior to the collection of the evidence, but his hand would suffer for it. With a quick flourish, he signed his name, then dropped the quill immediately afterwards.
"Thank you," Poppy said. She bustled off into her office, probably to duplicate the form and sign it herself, as a witness. When she returned, she was carrying a camera and she immediately secured the camera to the tripod and began to frame the shot.
"Set your right hand onto the table," Poppy said, once she was done fiddling with the angle of the camera.
Severus did so, immediately looking away from his hand.
The process of collecting the evidence was relatively simple. Poppy took pictures of Severus's hands from a variety of angles, then asked him a series of prescribed questions meant to– as objectively as possible– discern what had happened.
"Alright, Severus. That was the last one. I can now heal your hands," Poppy finally said.
Severus nodded gratefully.
Poppy summoned, with little fuss, the particular potions that were needed to heal Severus's hands– most likely because she had already used both of them earlier that day on Potter.
"I'm afraid these are going to scar quite visibly," Poppy said as she rubbed the cream into the burn.
"I had assumed they would, given the scarring that Potter bore."
Poppy stance went tense at this remark. "That bitch deserves to burn in hell," she muttered emphatically.
"You will hear no arguments from me," Severus said.
Before he knew it, Poppy had finished taking care of his hands.
"We have a decision to make now," Poppy said, sorting the completed paperwork into a neat stack.
"Yes," Severus said. "When do we want to officially file the report."
"I personally think that we should file the report now– and Minerva agrees with me– because Umbridge is simply too dangerous to leave in the castle. Minerva sends her regards, by the way, but she was called away by an emergency with her Gryffindors before you returned. It was already late enough that I told her I could handle the situation."
Severus's brow creased as he contemplated their options. He had the initial impression that the process to prosecute Umbridge would take some time– but now that he thought about it, he didn't see why it had to.
They already had plenty of evidence of her abuse of power, and now they just needed to get the evidence to the right people. And with their connections through the Order, they had an abundance of 'the right people' to choose from.
The frown slid off his features. "I agree that that would be best. Did you and Minerva discuss who to contact?"
"Minerva thinks that Kingsley would be best, but she said that you ought to have the final word on that."
Severus thought through the options and quickly came to the same conclusion that Minerva must have. "I agree. We ought to call Kingsley." Then he glanced down and grimaced.
Poppy sighed. "Alright– but you're not getting changed. I will temporarily transfigure your pajamas into something suitable to greet Kingsley in. But as soon as we're done meeting with him, you will be going to bed. Here. In the Hospital Wing."
Severus nodded. He'd vaguely hoped that he would be able to change and slip away, but it was clearly not to be.
Poppy quickly transfigured the pajamas into a simple pair of slacks and a sweater. Then she walked to the floo in her office, and Severus followed close behind.
"I'll go ahead and make the call," Poppy said, kneeling down on the cushion.
Severus took a step back to give her some space. Poppy made the call, but Kingsley took a while to respond. Severus supposed that it was the middle of the night, but he was impatient to get the whole situation resolved so he could go to sleep.
"It is past midnight, so this had better be important," Kingsley finally said, his voice rough from sleep.
"Oh, it is," Poppy said. "But it's not something I want to discuss over floo, so if you could come through, I would appreciate it."
"Very well," Kingsley said.
Poppy got to her feet and stepped away from the fireplace. Moments later, Kingsley appeared a flash of green fire.
"What is so important that I had to come here at this time of night," Kingsley asked, once he'd brushed the soot off of his robe.
Severus cleared his throat and took a step forward, holding up his hands so the scarring was clearly visible. "Both scars were inflicted by a dark artefact while the perpetrator thought I was Harry Potter."
Kingsley blinked slowly. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that? And tell me who in the blazes we're talking about."
Poppy cleared her throat. "I have all the paperwork to report the incident here," Poppy said. "But the short of it is that Umbridge has been using a Black Quill and Ardere Saxo Malae on Harry Potter during detention. Tonight, Severus Polyjuiced himself with Mr Potter's appearance and took his place in detention so we could gather evidence that would be admissible in court."
"And with that plan, you prevented Mr Potter from being further subjected to said dark artefacts," Kingsley said. "Very clever. Would you allow me to look through the evidence so I can determine if it is sufficient to make an arrest?"
"Very much so," Poppy said. She handed him the packet– which included the film of the pictures of Severus's hands.
After several minutes that consisted of Kingsley hemming and hawing over the paperwork, he nodded firmly. "I firmly believe that I will be able to get an arrest warrant. However, it did take me some time for me to decide whether or not the evidence will be sufficient to actually prosecute her."
"And?" Severus demanded impatiently. In his mind's eye, he could practically see Umbridge being loaded onto the boat to Azkaban, escorted by several Dementors, an expression of horror on her face.
"And I do believe that this," Kingsley said, hefting the packet of evidence, "will be sufficient to land her with a one-way ticket to Azkaban."
A satisfied look fell over Severus's face, and a quick glance at Poppy revealed that she was just as pleased.
"How long will it take you to get the arrest warrant?" Poppy asked, after a moment had passed.
"Not long at all, though gathering the backup I'll want may take a bit longer– I am assuming you want this wrapped up tonight."
Severus nodded.
"Right, well, I'd best get going on that warrant and backup, then," Kingsley said, stepping towards the fireplace.
"Best of luck to you," Poppy said.
"Thank you. I'll return here as soon as I can."
Then Kingsley called out the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, which was located in the Ministry, and disappeared.
"And now, we wait," Poppy said.
Severus could already feel the insistent, pressing weight of exhaustion, but he pushed it back. He wanted to see this through to the end, and exhaustion was not going to stop him.
"Would you like to play a game of chess while we wait?" Poppy asked.
Severus had the feeling that it would not go terribly well for either of them, but there was little else to do to pass the time. "Alright," he said.
Poppy gestured to a table with two chairs and a waiting chess set. Severus took one of the seats, and then they were off.
The floo flared a bright green, and several people stepped through into Poppy's office, breaking Severus's concentration.
As he'd predicted, the game had not gone well for either of them– it had been more of a war of attrition than a strategy game, thanks to their sheer exhaustion, meaning he was more than happy to abandon it.
One of the people who'd stepped through the floo was Kingsley.
"I have the warrant," Kingsley said, brandishing a piece of paper.
Severus grinned what he knew was a self-satisfied smirk.
"And you clearly got your backup, too," Poppy said approvingly.
"Is there anything else you require of us before you go?" Severus asked.
"Well, yes," Kingsley said. "We need to know where she is. We certainly don't know where her quarters are."
In hindsight, this seemed like an obvious oversight. Thankfully, Poppy was more than able to give detailed and accurate directions to Umbridge's quarters.
"And would you like to accompany us for the arrest?" Kingsley asked. "Ordinarily I wouldn't offer, but, given the circumstances, I think you've both earned the right to watch– especially you, Severus."
Severus mulled the question over as best as he could given that his thoughts were sluggish from the weight of his exhaustion.
He would deeply enjoy watching Umbridge be pulled from her bed in the middle of the night by officers of the law arriving to arrest her. But he was utterly exhausted, and the thought of a bed was as irresistible as a siren's call. Further urging him to decline the offer was the realization that he would still be able to attend her trial– and, of course, he planned to be there when they put her on the boat to Azkaban.
So he had to ask himself, was it worth it to watch Umbridge get arrested?
He realized that he was shaking his head even before his mouth formed the words. "I will have to decline," he said.
"Good. You need your rest," Poppy said. "I will also decline."
"Very well," Kingsley said. "Aurors– let's head out."
Then Kingsley, followed by the rest of the Aurors, marched out of Poppy's office and towards Umbridge's quarters. Severus stared after them for a moment.
"Let's get you to bed, then," Poppy said. She moved to stand in the doorway of her office, holding the door open for Severus. He walked through it and led the way to his bed.
He sat down and said, "Would you like to cancel the transfiguration?"
Poppy did so, and then she proceeded to brusquely bundle him into the bed. Severus was simply too tired to fight her as she pulled back the covers and gently pushed him back so he was lying down. Then, most painfully of all, she carefully tucked the covers around him.
The simple action managed to clear any lingering resentment he might have felt towards Poppy from being made to stay in the Hospital Wing overnight. Because it was difficult to feel that kind of petty anger towards someone who had just performed such an unnecessary, yet tender, gesture.
Poppy turned out the lights, and as she stepped out towards her quarters, she said, "Good night, Severus."
"Good night, Poppy," Severus returned.
As he lay there in the dark, Severus wondered if Potter had managed to sleep as peacefully after his own detentions. After all, Potter had never chosen to complain or to seek help, and so he had never been properly healed.
The question continued to float through Severus's mind as he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
AN: a massive thank you to everyone who's reviewed! it really means a lot and helped me through editing this extra-long chapter (around 1.5k words longer than average) please don't forget to let me know what you thought!