Harry's eyes were burning. They really, really hurt!

He opened his eyes blearily. Somewhere, a monitoring spell beeped. His vision was worse than usual. His head was pounding, too, and he could hardly--

Ron! Hermione! He bolted up out of bed wildly, sheer terror blasting away the pain like so much mist. He looked about him frantically, then collapsed into a heap of relief, seeing them lying peacefully asleep on either side of him.

For long moments he stared, hardly daring to blink, then dragged himself up into a semi-reclining position against the headboard, taking one of their hands in each of his, feasting his eyes on Ron's sleep-slack features, every freckle on his smooth face a celebration, drinking in the sight of Hermione's living flesh, her lashes fluttering on rosy cheeks, smiling with every breath she inhaled. He gripped their hands more tightly, nestling their fingers warmly into his palms, and tried to recollect what had happened yesterday. It was very difficult to remember; there had been Vold—

And it all came crashing back.

"Oh—" He whimpered as the memory of the awful blast rocked him. He began to hyperventilate, not caring as the image roared through his mind. He had died, Voldemort had died. And his friends had – they'd shielded, oh no oh NO, the BURNS – what had – He began to shudder and felt his eyes burn again as flashes came back to him: that half-crazed Apparation; yes, he remembered Apparating, and then Snape— "He told me they were dead!" he yelled, but even as he said it, storming into his consciousness was the knowledge that it had been the only way to save them. Who would have thought there were uses for Slytherin cunning…

The monitoring spell around his bed was emitting a high-pitched trilling noise now, and a number of mediwitchards were running full-tilt towards his bed. Ron's eyes fluttered open, and Harry, still trembling, gripped his hand tighter, bending over so that he could use his face to touch Ron's hair without having to let go of Hermione's hand. "'S all right," he murmured to Ron, awkwardly stroking the ginger thatch with his cheek, before the bewilderment could fully replace the sleep in the blue eyes. "Hermione's OK, we're all fine."

But Ron's bleary eyes fixed on Harry's scalp. "Y're hurt, mate," he slurred. His face held a certain pain for Harry. "Y'need to get that seen to…" Half-conscious, the tall redhead maneuvered awkwardly until his head rested on the slope between Harry's neck and shoulder, turning so that he lay on his side, his warm body pressed up close against Harry's, and wrapped an arm around both him and Hermione.

"Should we move them?" a mediwizard shrilled.

"You mad? Pomfrey'd have our guts for garters," retorted another. "Just give them the First Awakening potions."

Snuggled up against Ron, holding Hermione's hand, Harry hardly felt it as potions were shoved down his throat. "H'rry? Ron?" a feminine voice mumbled. Drifting again, he felt rather than saw her rise urgently from sleep, only to be downed by a Sedative Charm – but not before she had shifted and turned, as Ron had, and snuggled into Harry's other side, wriggling like a contented cat under Ron's hand, which patted her shoulder absently. Her gaze alighted warmly on the two of them, sympathy flickering across her face as she looked at him. "Harry, your head…" she murmured before drifting off again.

"'S all right, H'mione," Ron muttered, going under again. "You should have seen the other fellow…"

It was over. He was free.

Harry had a brief flash of wondering what on earth he was supposed to do with his life now before the potions laid him flat on his back for another eight hours.

Severus, hello.

Poppy's voice. His head jerked up off the pillow. Somewhere in his mind, he registered from the noise level around him that he had not only slept through the night, but well into the morning. Good Lord, he was decadent. But that was hardly the problem now, not with Poppy in his head. Since when can you read minds?

Since… yesterday. She hastily clarified: Not with everyone. Just… I think the people you were using Legilimency on, and since I was included in the link… She trailed off. I don't mean to intrude, I just wanted to know how to turn it off. I waited for you to wake up, and…

He frowned. It wasn't that Poppy's presence in his mind was unwelcome, but this business of people prancing in and out of his head had never been something he particularly approved of. It's all right, Poppy. I can turn it off with Occlumency. Look, I'm going to Occlude now. Could you Floo me in five minutes?

He jumped out of bed, used a series of charms to Transfigure the bed back into a chair, himself into some semblance of decency befitting a visit from a lady ("An old warhorse like me, a lady?" Poppy had laughed once. Severus had responded stiffly: "Unlike some people, I have had a proper upbringing," although the peals of laughter this had elicited had not been the response he'd hoped for), and the room back into – He paused in mid-incantation. No, he wouldn't be a hypocrite. This was the way he liked his Potions dungeon – lab, he corrected – and if St. Mungo's didn't like it they could lump it. He'd surreptitiously been following real estate values in the Muggle world, and prices were rising, so it wasn't as though he was so out of options that he had to sacrifice his personal taste to some ignoramus of an 'interior designer' who probably didn't know his wand from his—

"Oh, how lovely!"

Severus looked from Pomfrey's admiring gaze to the ceiling back to the fireplace, and quirked a half-smile. "Wasn't sure you'd approve."

"Oh, I love it. I've always found dark-coloured walls sophisticated."

He wasn't entirely sure whether "thank you" would be appropriate, as he wasn't the one who'd invented dark-coloured walls, so he settled for a grunt.

Thank Merlin the mediwitch was used to his moods; she merely smiled. "Sleep well?"

"Like the dead," Severus admitted. "Sorry, there must have been a lot of work to do…"

"Not for us," Poppy explained. "For the medi's it's merely been a matter of checkups. But the paperwork to get a thousand patients out at once has been another matter. We've had to take on a dozen Hogwarts seventh years as temporary help to process the number of patients leaving, hired a public relations witch to fend off the press.. It's big news, you know. Over a thousand patients hit by Dark curses, miraculously cured."

"Hmm." Severus didn't even want to contemplate the strength of the love that would cause that to happen. Best left for the Potions Quarterly paper. He focused instead on trivialities. "Who did you take on?"

"Oh, you know them, I think: the Creevey brothers, Robins, Smith…"

"What about the PR witch?"

"Lovegood."

"WHAT?!" Snape burst out. "Luna Lovegood?"

"Ye—"

"Ravenclaw, blonde hair, bulging eyes, once commentated on the shape of the clouds at a Quidditch match?"

"I don't really watch Quidditch, I'm usually stocking the infirmary for after th…"

"Wonderful!" moaned Severus, running his hands through his hair. "Marvellous! Since when is she a public relations expert?"

"Well, her father…"

"Is an addle-pated old COOT!" bellowed Severus. "And she's a chip off the old block! She's probably out there right now, feeding the reporters some impossible line about…" A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as the irresistible hilarity of the situation struck him. "…Crumple-Horned Snorkacks and… gum disease…" A chuckle bubbled up out of him as Pomfrey looked at him in bewilderment, "…in fact… they deserve each other."

Gripped with a sudden impish desire, he moved towards the Floo. "Where is the press conference being held?"

"Ms Lovegood!" called a reporter. "Is it true that Harry Potter defeated You-Know-Who?"

The newly appointed press secretary smiled serenely. "Harry Potter," she smiled. "Or Harry Weasley, really. Why should witches take their husbands' names? Ginny doesn't seem to be the sort of girl to stand for that."

"What?"

"She's in Spain now, finishing up the fighting in Alhambra," Luna said earnestly. "They let her off her classes because they found her special powers, you know, seventh daughter and all that. Proves that seventh son business is all just silly, doesn't it?"

One of the reporters cleaned out his ear while another picked up his Quick-Quotes Quill and shook it. "But the Final Battle? Were there Aurors present with the Boy-who-Lived?"

Luna stared at him seriously. "You know the Aurors are part of the Rotfang Conspiracy." As Snape shook with silent laughter, she went on to explain how their strategy was to bring down the Ministry from within "using a combination of Dark Magic and gum disease."

One of the reporters apparently had a brainwave. "Er, Miss Lovegood, were you yourself at the Final Battle? Perhaps hit by a hex or some such?"

Poppy glared. "That's insulting!" she hissed in an aside to Severus.

"She can take care of herself." Severus found himself grinning. Grinning!

Her eyes took on a dreamy gaze. "That's an interesting question. Was I?"

"Yes, were you?"

Luna regarded the reporter with perfect equanimity. "Perhaps. What do you think?"

"Um, well…"

"Because you know, if the theory of relativity is correct – marvellous Muggle theory, really – it would dictate that I was."

"So you were."

"Or that I wasn't."

"So were you or weren't you?"

"At the same time."

"What?"

"Depending on the relative positions of matter at the time. So really, there's an alternate reality where I was there, somewhere, depending on the number of different outcomes that can happen like a ripple in the water."

One reporter at the back of the room chewed on his quill. Another ripped up her parchment. A third conjured an ear-trumpet. "A ripple?" the first reporter tried, valiantly.

"Yes. The only question is, are we one of the alternate realities, or the main one? Because it stands to reason," she said, settling more comfortably on her chair, "that the people in every reality would think that theirs was the correct one and that the others are the alternates, doesn't it?"

A reporter at the back stood up with a nasty scowl. "Look, Miss Lovegood, stop dancing around the issue! What about the Boy-Who-Lived?"

"Ah, but you see? He may not have lived."

"Harry Potter is DEAD?" screamed one reporter.

"But I thought he killed the Dark Lord!" yelled another.

Luna was still talking about alternate realities as a few of the more excitable reporters stampeded for the door.

Poppy gave Severus a hard stare. "Severus, take this paperwork and go back to bed if all you're going to do here is slide down the wall laughing."