Chapter 3

The next time Harry woke, he was alone and the hospital wing was blessedly dark. He considered getting up—and decided against it. Madame Pomfrey was not a mediwitch to cross, and he was reasonably certain she would be a bit upset with him if he made a bid for freedom. On the other hand, he was pretty sure he'd been asleep for way longer than he needed to be.

And he was hungry.

Harry sat up, waited a moment for a slight bout of dizziness to pass, and started to climb to his feet only to be interrupted by an irate nurse who came… 'bolting' was a bit too strong… 'striding rapidly' into the room.

"Oh, no, you don't, Mr. Potter! You get right back in that bed this instant!"

Harry sat back down.

Madame Pomfrey turned the lights on, thankfully dimly, and took in the boy's expression.

"Well, I suppose we should be grateful you feel well enough to even try. Lie back down, Mr. Potter, and tell me how you're feeling."

Harry did as he was told, albeit reluctantly, as he'd been more than happy to be upright for a while. "A little shaky," he admitted, "but aside from that I feel pretty well right now. I got dizzy for a minute when I sat up, but it didn't last long. Mostly I'm just hungry."

Pomfrey gave an indulgent smile, "Well, I can understand why. I'll have the house-elves send something up for you—mind, it will be light, and don't you dare ask for anything else! Your stomach needs to be reintroduced to food; you've not eaten in a week."

Harry gave an appropriately meek "Yes, ma'am," and was permitted bread and broth.

Poppy stood and watched him finish before shaking her head, "Try to go back to sleep. If you can't, there's a sleeping drought on the table, there. I'll check on you again in the morning."

Harry gave a sound of acknowledgement and the mediwitch left, spelling the lights back off.

He had just given up on going to sleep on his own and swallowed the potion when the infirmary door opened and someone slipped inside, gently closing the door behind them. The person moved unerringly towards his bed as the grogginess accompanying a strong sleeping drought set in. He was vaguely aware of long fingers brushing his hair away from his forehead before a cool hand settled on his brow, almost habitually checking his temperature as a second hand wrapped around his wrist, two fingers pressing lightly over the pulse-point for several seconds.

"Are you awake?"

The voice was low, almost hesitant, and Harry couldn't place it. What with the lights being out and his lack of glasses, he hadn't a hope of seeing who it was, even without the potion clouding his senses.

"No' fr long," he mumbled, turning his head slightly as the hand moved away. A soft sound, almost a chuckle, and the hand was back on his forehead. He sighed softly as his eyes slid closed, giving in to the insistent pull of sleep.

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Snape stood still for several minutes before pulling his hand away from the sleeping boy's forehead. Harry's temperature seemed fine and his pulse was normal, but he shouldn't still be so tired. Severus doubted the boy had even recognized him.

His glance around the room was habitual, a check for threats or latent information, and he spotted an empty vial on the night-table. On examination, it smelled like a rather powerful sleeping draft—a variation of Dreamless Sleep, without the 'Dreamless' part and addictive qualities. Potter must have woken up and been lucid enough that Pomfrey had felt the need to drug him back to sleep for the rest of the night.

Relieved, he caught himself brushing the hair away from the boy's forehead and recoiled.

Oh, how the mighty had fallen—it was bad enough that he'd actually felt the need to check on the boy before going to bed after a late-night brewing session, now he was practically fawning over the child! Brat. The brat.

The Potions Master sneered at himself and stalked out of the room, catching himself closing the door softly in order to leave the sleeping child—Brat, damn it!—undisturbed, despite the fact that it would take a great deal to wake him, considering the potion he was under.

Albus would never let him live this down.

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"Well, Mr. Potter," Madame Pomfrey eyed her wayward charge, "I suppose I could let you attend classes today. Mind, if you start feeling tired or dizzy, you're to come straight back here!"

Harry nodded vigorously, "Yes, ma'am."

"And of course, you won't, so I'll be telling those friends of yours to keep an eye on you!" She didn't mention her intention to firecall his teachers as well. Which she did as soon as she'd given her instructions to Ron and Hermione and sent the trio off to Charms.

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Charms went remarkably well, considering he'd missed a whole week of them. He had more trouble than the rest of the class with the bird summoning charm, as he didn't have the background, but he managed to conjure an odd little red and green songbird of no discernable type by the end of class.

Professor Flintwick handed Harry a list of chapters to read in his Charms textbook and spells he needed to catch up on, then informed him he'd have two weeks before he'd have to demonstrate them after classes on Monday.

"So… what's next?" Harry asked Ron as they left Charms.

Hermione pulled out her schedule, "Well, there's lunch—Madame Pomfrey wanted you to eat in the infirmary so she could run another checkup—and then Potions." Hermione grimaced, "Sorry."

"Yeah, that's rough, mate," Ron observed, "Snape's gonna be a nightmare. We've been working on this really tough potion all week—we're only starting the brewing today."

Harry was more concerned from Hermione's brief 'Sorry' than Ron's warning. Hermione did not apologize for telling someone what their next class was unless it was going to be really bad. He groaned and resisted the urge to bang his head against the wall—it wouldn't help his slowly returning headache at all.

Ron split off to grab his and Harry's Potion's books from the Tower—Hermione, as usual, had hers with her—while Hermione escorted Harry to the hospital wing and left him in Madame Pomfrey's slightly irritable care.

Fortunately, she was more irritated with the three first-years (Ravenclaws, oddly enough) that had managed to be stupid enough to get caught in one of the trick stairs right before the staircase decided to move. Somehow, two of them had gotten stuck and the third was trying to pull them out when the staircase's sudden movement had knocked her off balance and she'd crashed into her friends and all three of them had ended up with sprains and bruises. This kept Pomfrey from mother-henning Harry much, and she just made sure he had a meal she approved of.

She was so distracted that she left him there with the three first years and he managed to get the entire story out of them before his friends showed up to whisk him off to Snape's dungeon classroom.

They were late. Not very late, mind you, but late nonetheless.

They hurried through the door, expecting acidic tongue-lashings and point loss—Snape merely raised an eyebrow. "Get to your cauldrons Granger, Weasley."

Casting apologetic glances in Harry's direction, they left him standing in the doorway, unsure what to do, while they moved to work on the potion Snape had assigned.

"Potter, don't just stand there, get in here and go sit in that corner," Snape pointed to a well-lit area away from the brewing, "Start reading the text for the Dreamless Sleep potion and for Merlin's sake stay away from Longbottom's cauldron."

Harry blinked in total shock and the entire class stared at their Potions Master for several seconds. That had been almost… nice. For Snape, anyway.

Several times, Harry caught himself dozing as he read, the dull ache in his temples turning into a rhythmic throb that he would have been more than happy to do without. The last time it happened, it was the near presence of Professor Snape that snapped him back awake.

Harry blinked. Snape had caught him sleeping in class! That should be very bad, but he couldn't remember why.

"Mr. Potter," there was clear irritation in that voice, "If your health is not sufficient to remain awake during class, you should not be here. Return to the hospital wing."

"Yes, sir," Harry managed, surprised but not quite sure what it was that he had been expecting. He stood—and staggered, blackness creeping across his vision while vertigo washed over him, his headache kicking up several more notches.

A strong hand caught his shoulder and steadied him until he caught his balance, but the throbbing in his head didn't die back down. He opened his eyes and saw Snape's obsidian gaze evaluating him, "You haven't even noticed that the class has been dismissed, have you?"

Harry blinked and looked around. He hadn't noticed, but the room was empty but for cauldrons in apparent stasis and the two of them. Through his headache, he couldn't quite bring himself to care.

Snape ran his free hand through his hair with a muted sigh and eyed the boy critically. If his general pallor and the stress lines around his eyes and forehead were to be believed, Harry was in pain. He also seemed… distracted, to say the least.

Severus steered the boy towards his office and sat him down before moving to the back of the dungeon and rummaging through a cabinet of his private potions. He pulled out a painkiller and handed it to Har—Potter, who looked at the vial blankly.

Snape gave a slightly less muted sigh and took it back, pried out the cork, and held it to the boy's lips. "Drink," he commanded. Undoubtedly the boy's friends would be hovering outside the classroom door, waiting for their precious Golden Boy to be returned to them. The sooner he got the dazed brat coherent, the sooner he could get rid of him.

That's what he told himself, anyway. But the boy's easy compliance brought a faint stirring of concern—Harry Potter did not like or trust Severus Snape. It was common knowledge. But this was the second time Harry had drunk a potion handed to him by his most hated teacher without question.

Something was wrong with the boy.

Harry finished the vial and tilted his head down, "Thanks, Professor," he murmured.

Snape stared and amended his previous thought. Something was very wrong with the boy.

xxxx