Disclaimer: Don't own anything, blah, blah, blah…
Summary: Harry, Ron, and Hermione see something they haven't seen before in their Potions Professor… ok, so I suck at summaries…
Chapter 3
Severus, followed closely by Hagrid hurried out of the small hut. He looked around the grounds for the source of the scream but he didn't have to look for long. A crowd was beginning to gather at the edge of the lake where two children were being thrashed around in the air by two giant tentacles. A girl was pointing her wand at the tentacles but what ever spell she was using wasn't doing much good.
The two men darted toward the scene, quickly making their way through the crowd.
"Get back! All of yer," Hagrid said as he made a wide path through the mass.
"Granger! Get back now!" Severus yelled in a gasping voice. The run had taken a lot out of him.
"But, Professor-"
"Now!"
Hermione backed away but lingered a bit closer than the crowd. She wanted to be ready in case anything else decided to go wrong.
Severus aimed his wand at the source of the extended tentacles but what ever he shouted was lost in the noise from the turmoil. A white light shot from his wand and hit the target dead on. The two boys were dropped in the lake immediately. Severus hurriedly waded into the lake and shouted back to Hagrid, "Get Weasley. That curse won't have its effect much longer."
Harry was trying to get to his feet. The water was only up to his waist where he had been dropped. He hadn't hurt anything in the fall due to the water but he was off balanced from the thrashing. He finally got to his feet and almost instantly fell into the water again. He was making his second attempt to get up when he felt a pair of arms pick him up and carry him back to shore.
The arms gently set him down at the edge of the lake beside someone else. "Harry!" it was Ron. "You all right?"
Harry blinked a few times and pushed his soaked hair out of his face and straightened his glasses. "Yeah, you?"
Before Ron could answer, they felt Hermione kneel behind them. "Are you two all right?"
"Fine," said Ron looking a bit awkward at the way that Hermione was looking at them.
Harry turned in front of him to see who had taken him from the lake. Severus was half kneeling, half sitting on the grass before him trying to catch his breath and look rather pale, even for him.
"Are you two, all right?" the man questioned, breathing hard.
Both Harry's and Ron's eyes were wide with astonishment at the expression on their Potions Professor's face. Concern?
Severus extended a trembling hand and placed it on Harry's shoulder, "Can you hear-"
"Professor! Look out!"
But Hermione's cry was too late. An oversized tentacle crashed into Severus' side, making a sickening bone crunching noise when it came into contact with his arm.
The next thing Severus felt was a tentacle wrap itself tightly around his torso. He let out a gasp of pain. The shouts around him seemed miles away. The only thing he could feel was a very sharp pain in his arm. It was also getting harder to breath. The tentacle kept enclosing tighter. Finally, the world around him was beginning to cloud over when suddenly a bright golden light filled his eyes and with out warning he felt the tentacle disappear and the cold sensation of water enveloping him.
He lay at the bottom of the lake for a moment looking up into the world from the lake. The sun was hitting a spot above him and dancing on the surface. Suddenly, the scene was cut by a massive hand reaching out for him. It was the last thing he saw before everything went black.
Hagrid pulled the man out of the water. His body was completely limp and his arm was hanging at a funny angle.
"He's unconscious, Professor Dumbledore, an' he's not breathin'," Hagrid said as he brought the man to the old wizard. Much of the staff had now made there way to the lake. The noise from the commotion had not gone unnoticed in the castle.
Dumbledore pointed his wand at the mouth of the unconscious man and a smoky blue haze came out of it. The man coughed and water came out of his mouth. He was now taking in shallow breaths and his chest was moving up and down steadily.
"Thank you, Hagrid. Please, take him to the infirmary. Poppy should have a look at that arm," Dumbledore said as he examined the lifeless body in Hagrid's arms. "And please ask her to be thorough in her examination," he added as a last thought.
Hagrid nodded and proceeded to the castle steps and soon disappeared behind its walls.
Dumbledore turned to the three Gryffindors. "You three, are you all right?" They all nodded. "Then please follow me."
The three friends got up from the grass and silently followed their headmaster.
* * * * *
Harry, Ron, and Hermione were in Dumbledore's office. They looked around curiously as Dumbledore went to his desk and put his wand down. Making his way back to his three students, he beckoned them to sit. They each looked around and sat next to each other in a long couch.
Dumbledore waited for them to sit and then chose a chair that was adjacent to the couch. "Now," he began, "let me start by assuring you that you are not in any sort of trouble." At their puzzled looks, the old man smiled. "I witnessed the event from my window," he said indicating a window behind them. "I've only asked you three up here to ask you a few questions. The first of which being, what in the world did you do to irritate that squid?" gave a short laugh at this.
Harry spoke first since he was the one of the three that felt most comfortable with the headmaster. "We were just tickling it, Sir."
Ron piped in at this, "Loads of students do it, Sir. It was sitting there calmly and then it just attacked us."
"I see, Mr. Weasley. Quite odd behavior. I remember tickling them myself from time to time during my youth here," Dumbledore sounded as if he were talking to and old friend. He usually had this effect on people. But Harry could detect a slight off set in his voice that normally wasn't there.
"Well, on to the second question then," he said folding his hands in his lap. "Did you notice anything odd? Anything at all?"
"Well," Hermione hesitated for a moment. "Professor, it's just that it happened so quickly. One minute it was just laying there and then the next, Ron and Harry were in the air."
"And Snape…Professor Snape," Ron added at the look from Dumbledore. "He was, well, acting a bit odd."
"What do you mean?"
"Well," said Harry giving Ron a sideways glance that was supposed to mean 'shut-up,' "It's just that he's been really moody lately, more than usual. And then by the lake, he…"
"Yes, Harry?"
"Well, he looked really worried."
"Ah. Well, I should think so. Two of his students were in danger," Dumbledore said as if it made perfect sense.
Harry looked down. After his last term, he knew that Dumbledore trusted Snape but he wasn't so sure that he did yet.
Dumbledore glimpsed at a clock on the wall across from him. "Well, look at the time. I think that you three have just enough time to make it to your next classes," he said with a cheerful smile.
The three got up quickly and left through the spiral staircase. They stopped at the bottom. They all looked like they had several questions burning in their mind but they didn't have time to stand around and discuss them if they wanted to be on time to class.
"I've got to go this way," Hermione said breaking the silence. "Meet you two at dinner?"
Ron and Harry nodded and the three parted ways for their next class.
* * * * *
Madam Pomfrey was livid. She stared down at the sleeping form lying in the bed next to her chair. She turned to the man sitting on the other side of the bed. "Honestly, Albus! I haven't had to put an arm in a sling since…since…I can't remember when!" Her voice was a higher pitch than normal and she was breathing much harder than normal.
Turning back to the man in the bed, she continued her rant. "Magic can only do so much. He has to have the sustenance. Healing magic works with the body. He's starved and sleep deprived himself into a state where I can't do anything more for him than a muggle nurse could."
"Now, Poppy, I happen to think that you have more up your sleeve than that," Dumbledore chuckled.
The man turned his eyes back on his former student. "He needs us needs us right now. He's trying to push us away but we can't let him succeed in that."
Pomfrey sighed. "I know, Albus. It's just hard when the patient is so evasive. He's always been this way. I've been trying to corner him for weeks, you know? Everyone has said something about him and I can't remember when I last saw him at a meal."
Dumbledore chuckled at this. "You usually don't have any trouble finding your patients, Poppy."
Pomfrey gave a slight smile. "Well, you know Severus. Thinks he can tackle the world on his own."
The two turned their attention back to the form in the bed when a soft moan reached their ears. Pomfrey took Severus' left hand in hers given that Severus' right arm was cradled in a sling.
The man's eyes fluttered open and he moved his head slightly from side to side taking in his surroundings. He groaned as he tried to move his arm.
Pomfrey brushed a strand of hair out of the man's eyes that had fallen when he moved his head. "There, there, dear. Try to stay still," she said in a gentle tone that contradicted her angry rant from a few moments ago.
Severus focused his eyes on the nurse and then on the man at his other side. He tried to sit up but the two on his sides tenderly pushed him back. He let out a light murmur of discomfort. He could tell that his ribs were probably bruised from the giant squid.
"Well, I would heal you if I could, but I can't until you get some rest and something to eat," the nurse said shortly, some of her previous anger was coming back. "Really, Severus."
He turned to the elder man. "What happened?" Then memories of the earlier events flooded back to him. He bolted up into a sitting position and made to get out of the bed. "Are they all right? Why aren't they here?" he asked in a panicky voice laced with what sounded like anger.
"Severus!" Madam Pomfrey took out her wand and pointed it at the man. "You get back in that bed or you'll be lucky to live to see the day that I let you out of it."
Severus turned to Dumbledore, a look of shock plastered on his face. At this, Dumbledore smiled, "They are both fine, Severus. They're back in class right now."
The younger man relaxed a bit at the news. One more glance at the nurse and he edged back to his original position. He busied himself with looking over his arm, avoiding the eyes of the nurse.
"Is it broken?"
"Yes, dear, you really shouldn't move it," she said putting a soft hand on it to prevent Severus from inspecting it further.
Severus looked up at the door to the hospital wing when he noticed another figure entering the room.
"What happened?!" McGonagall looked almost as angry as Pomfrey had been moments ago. "Some of my students said they saw the whole thing!"
Severus looked back to Dumbledore with a pleading look. Between the two women, he wasn't sure which one was worse to have angry at him alone but both at the same time was a bit much to handle.
Dumbledore had apparently caught his meaning because he interrupted McGonagall just as she had seen Severus and had time to analyze his condition.
"Now, Minerva, Poppy has informed me that Severus will be just fine once he gets some rest and something to eat," he said in his normal jovial tone.
"Well, now that you're here, Minerva, I think I'm going to the kitchens to find something suitable for him. Would you mind watching him for a bit. I'd leave him with Albus but I'm afraid he isn't strict enough when it comes to my instructions." She looked at Dumbledore who, it appeared, had found a rather interesting spot on the ceiling to investigate.
"Of course, Poppy." Her smile toward the nurse faded when she turned to Severus. "Well, at least we know what it takes to get you to seek medical attention now. Perhaps we should have Albus install an aquarium in the library and dungeons and put a giant squid in each of them." She had a frown on her face, but it seemed rather forced.
"Very funny, Minerva," Severus said weakly.
"Well, I certainly thought so," Dumbledore had left the spot in the ceiling and had returned to the conversation.
A smile slowly appeared on McGonagall's lips. "That was very brave of you, Severus."
Severus looked away from her, looking slightly embarrassed. He cleared his throat and turned to Dumbledore with a serious expression. "It's happening more frequently."
The two at either side of the injured man visibly sobered.
"Yes, I received your message from Dobby."
"Whatever he's planning, it's going to happen soon."
McGonagall and Dumbledore exchanged concerned looks but before any further discussion could be had, Pomfrey returned with a bowl of broth for Severus.
* * * * *
Author's Note: Thanks to all who reviewed :-) Don't worry, Severus' little arm grabbing thing didn't go by unnoticed. Harry, Ron, and Hermione are way too nosey to let that go. Anyway, continue letting me know what you think. Hope you enjoy it ;-)