Remembrance and Renewal by Avatar Arkmage and Nigel Tatsuya
Chapter Twelve: Nine Times Blue
It was as though a heated poker had been pressed to Harry's forehead when his scar came into contact with the Dark Mark. The searing heat spread through his head like flames fed by a highly combustible substance. Harry could barely will himself to remain against the searing heat of his father's left arm. Was this truly what his father went through each time The Dark Lord summoned him?
In apparent discomfort, Severus groaned, and shifted his position twice more. He finally draped his right arm over Harry as he rolled onto his side, facing the boy. The added contact was the unspoken encouragement that Harry needed. He then concentrated, not on the pain, but on seeing beyond it. What was Voldemort up to, and what did he want with Snape?
The smell of coagulating blood, festering wounds, and charred flesh assailed Harry's nostrils just moments later, as though in response to his inquiry. At first, Harry surmised that he was back in the infirmary, for he heard the moans of wounded people, and the footfalls of the harried medical staff tending them.
The fact that he recognised neither the people, nor the location, indicated that he was not at Hogwarts.
The walls of the spacious room were finished in rich raven green hues, and adorned with paintings depicting very dark scenes. Harry involuntarily glanced at paintings over some of the wounded, and saw the macabre images of people being led to a guillotine, terrified muggles lashed to stakes as kindling around their feet was set ablaze, and inquisitors making full use of the ducking stool.
The room did not seem to be part of a hospital at all, but a parlour in a grand manor converted into a makeshift ward for the wounded. Harry felt exquisite anger rise within him at the sight of a cowering Peter Pettigrew, kneeling in contrition upon the blood smeared floor at his feet. Some of that anger, Harry knew, was from Voldemort himself. The rest was his own, but Harry endeavoured to suppress it, for fear of alerting The Dark Lord to his clandestine presence.
Harry concluded that this location was the current headquarters of the Dark Lord's Forces. He attempted to gather as much visual intelligence as he could, but he was relegated to looking only at matters of interest to Voldemort. Try though he did, Harry could find nothing, a family crest, a seal, or even a view of a landmark out of an open window, to more positively identify this location.
A moment later, a very battered Lucius Malfoy hobbled into the room. His white-blonde hair was randomly flecked with bright red blood, his Death Eater robes had been torn so badly that they barely stayed on, and his once elegant green velvet clothing beneath hung in tatters, exposing large areas of pale, bruised flesh. He was flanked by several other masked figures, who looked as though they had suffered similar or worse fates.
"Malfoy," Harry felt himself say to the pale, blond man. "What happened?"
Although it was difficult to distinguish from the bruising all over his face, the senior Malfoy blushed fiercely. "We encountered some unexpected resistance, Master..."
Harry found the senior Malfoy's attempt at appearing lofty and cavalier, while at the same time looking like the loser from a fight with a sheet metal stamper, amusing. He would have laughed, were it not for the extreme disappointment and anger he felt from Voldemort.
"What's wrong, Malfoy?" jeered a Death Eater Harry didn't recognize. "You get your arse kicked by a bunch of little girls or something?"
"There was nothing little about them!" Bacterian blurted out, looking quite dazed.
"That is most dissssgraceful." Voldemort hissed. "I've put you in charge of that operation, Malfoy. You've failed."
"Master, if I may..." Malfoy tried.
"You may not!" Voldemort raised his wand as though to punish the man who still managed to look haughty whilst expecting the Cruciatus curse or worse. "And to think I arranged your escape from Azkaban, and you ssshow your gratitude by failing in your firssst assignment." At the last possible moment though, Voldemort turned to Crabbe Sr. and Goyle Sr. "Give Malfoy what he desssservesss for hisssss dereliction in his dutiesssss."
Harry watched in revulsion as Crabbe and Goyle backed the senior Malfoy into a corner of the darkened room. He knew what was to come, for he had witnessed the damage these men had done to his father earlier in the week. Harry wanted more than anything to turn away from the violence that was sure to follow, but he could not, for he felt Voldemort's amusement rising within him. Malfoy's hurt cries soon filled the air, but Harry could barely hear them over his own maniacal laughter.
To Harry's relief, Voldemort turned away from the pogrom several minutes later out of sheer boredom. No doubt he had watched Crabbe and Goyle pummel enough erring Death Eaters to no longer find it to be a novel occurrence.
Harry thoughts drifted momentarily to his own schoolmate, Draco Malfoy. From what Harry could construe, Draco could probably tell Vincent and Gregory to dance naked in the great hall during one of the castle's many feasts, and they'd in all likelihood comply without much reservation. Then again, what if their compliance to Draco Malfoy was nothing more than a charade? What if their obedience was due to the command of Crabbe Sr. and Goyle Sr., and not stemming from any authority directly in Malfoy's hands? Did Draco really wield that much power over his two goons? Would Vincent and Gregory send Draco to 'course: oblivion' when given the order to do so ?
'What was he doing?' Harry asked himself, shocked at his own musings. Worrying about Draco? Had almost dying changed him that much that he would want to spare Draco from a beating that he supposedly deserved?
'No,' Harry reasoned, although he had not flinched at Draco being turned into a ferret by the false Mad-Eye Moody, he would surely derive no satisfaction at seeing him hurt more seriously than that. No one, not even an utter prat like Draco, deserved to be bludgeoned and humiliated like that.
Being on the threshold of Death had not changed him so much. At least not in that way.
Even though Harry would have thought it impossible, he felt pity welling deep within him, amid the disgust he knew originated from Voldemort, as he walked amid scores of wounded Death Eaters in the makeshift infirmary. With their masks on, the Death Eaters had always been very easy to despise. Now, many of them wore only battle scars, the torn remnants of their cloaks, and...tears?
Harry was taken aback a the sight of a wounded red haired woman. She wrapped her arms around her ample midsection, the unborn within her thrashing violently, as though in protest of its mother's reckless ways. Her white, cracked Death Eater's mask lay discarded on the floor next to her narrow cot.
To Harry's astonishment, he felt a curious mixture of rage and worry at the woman. Had she truly joined the other Death Eaters in the night's raids? In her condition? "Why did you come on thissss raid, Sssterope?" Voldemort demanded, and Harry realised that the concern had not entirely been his own.
"I had to, My Lord!" The woman replied, the child within her causing her near-hemispherical belly to tremble. "Those bloody Aurors were in our town, practically in our back yard! When I felt your summons, I joined immediately."
"I wasss not sssummoning you sspecifically, Sssterope!" Voldemort said in a scolding tone. "In your condition..."
"What kind of world would I be bringing this child into?" the woman paused and gritted her teeth, apparently having a contraction. When the pain subsided, she continued as though there had been no lull. "A world run by those self-righteous rulers at the ministry? A world where we allow those warlike muggles to infect our society as effectively as a plague? Look at what they've done to their own world! Poverty...pestilence...wars whenever they have the resources to attack each other..."
"Sso you would have your child grow up without its mother?" Voldemort spat sharply. "Your lover hasss already perished, are you ssso eager to follow him?"
Sterope shook her head as another contraction ripped through her body.
"Ssseek to live, Sssterope." Voldemort ordered.
Sterope's initial reply was a scream; the contractions were coming in earnest. "Yes, My Lord."
"If you die, your infant may jusst end up languissshing in a Muggle orphanage. A meddlesssome lot they are, and orphansss from our world have a way of ending up in theirssss."
"No, no, no, My Lord!" cried Sterope. "I will live! I will live! I'll not have those filthy Muggles lay a hand on this child! Aaaaaagh!" Sterope doubled over as a stronger contraction took hold, lasting nearly ninety seconds. "No, little one, not now. Please not now. You're not due to arrive for another two months. Stay where you are."
"Sssissyphussss!" Voldemort shouted at one of the healers, whose lime-green St. Mungos uniform collar appeared randomly above the black of his Death Eater robes. "Ssssee to her at onccccce."
"But master, Mulcahy here has a ruptured..."
"Crucio!" Voldemort hissed before even drawing his wand fully into his hand.
Harry wanted to avert his eyes at the sight of the healer Sisyphus writhing on the floor whilst screaming horribly.
Voldemort lifted the curse, but not before catapulting the healer to Sterope's bedside with a second spell. "You will tend her."
"Y-y-es, Mas-ter." Sisyphus stammered, still trembling from the Cruciatus curse as he raised the woman's tattered skirts.
Harry hoped the woman's body would hold onto the fetus until it could survive on its own safely in the outside world. Even though the child's mother was a Death Eater, and the child would very likely follow her to Death Eater meetings when it was old enough, Harry wanted it to live and know its mother.
Harry began to wonder if the thoughts were his own, or perhaps Voldemort's. Hadn't Tom Riddle been raised in an orphanage as well? Did he still possess a shred of humanity, that he would be concerned as to whether or not this child would share his fate, and be raised without parents as he, and Harry, had been? Might that be why he routinely killed whole families, rather than merely killing the parents and sparing the children, condemning them to a life without a parent's love, like he and Voldemort had both known.
Harry did not have the opportunity to learn the fate of the woman's unborn, for Voldemort turned and walked out of the room. Along the way, he saw more and more rows of beaten death eaters, laying on objects which had been transfigured into narrow beds. By the time Voldemort exited the room, Harry no longer saw the death eaters as nothing more than faceless, brutes who killed and tortured for pleasure. Sure, there were individuals amongst them who were indeed brutes who tortured and killed for pleasure, but most of the wounded seemed to be ordinary people, misguided, though ordinary people nonetheless.
Surely even among those in the side of he light, there were equally bad people.
Voldemort walked into a comfortably furnished living room, and lit the fireplace by shouting "incendio" at it. He spelled a leather lounger chair closer to the fire and sat down heavily in it. Nagini, seeming eager for the warmth the fireplace provided as well as the company of its master, slithered from a nearby velvet pillow and onto Voldemort's lap. To Harry's disgust, Wormtail scuttled after the serpent and knelt at Voldemort's feet. How Harry longed to use the pale-haired man as a footrest. Better still, Harry hoped that Voldemort would trudge through the mud and THEN use Peter Pettigrew as a hassock...or better still, a football.
"Any word on Ssssnape?" Voldemort stroked Nagini's scales as he spoke.
"Well m-master." Wormtail shook so much that Harry knew the news was bad. "The rumour..."
"I am not interessssted in rumourssss." Voldemort hissed, rubbing Nagini roughly. "What have you heard? I've been ssssummoning Sssnape all last night, and all day today, and he hasssn't yet made an appearanccce."
"I've heard that Sniv-Snape is in very bad c-condition." Wormtail quivered out. "And the school nurse...she won't let him leave! Chained him to the bed and all."
"Then Ssschool Nurse Pomfrey will be dealt with." Voldemort looked as though he were about to strangle the poor snake as he roughly grasped its neck. "With their potionsss master out of commissssion, and with all those patientsss, they will sssoon need to acquire their potionsss elsewhere. Wormtail, if they owl any of the apothecaries, have their carriers intercepted. If Matron Poppy Pomfrey is fool enough to venture to an outside apothecary on her own, it will ssssave us a conssssiderable amount of trouble."
How Harry wanted to wipe that sickening grin off of Wormtail's face, preferably with the cured hide of a razor backed reptilian.
"In the meantime," Voldemort eased Nagini off of his lap and stood. "Asss much as thossse incompetentss out there don't desssserve it, we ssstill have to acquire more potionssss for them...what do you recommend Wormtail?"
"W-we could break into the apothecaries ourselves? And their supply companies? And steal potions?"
"There'sss that, but with so many of our number injured, there will be only so much we can sssteal. I dare say it won't be enough." Voldemort appeared to go into a trance as he pondered the available options. "Wormtail...how proficient are you at casting the imperiousss curssse?"
"T-tolerably well, sir..."
"Then acquire an interim potion masssster or two."
Wormtail's eyes brightened.
"No, Wormtail, note that I sssssaid interim potion massster' and not permanent potion masssster?'" Voldemort rasped derisively. "You may not like Ssseverus Ssssnape and you'd probably like nothing better than to sssee him gone from our midssst, but you and I both know there isss no potionsss massster as accomplissshed as Sssnape in the entire U.K. He hasss invented sssome of the more...interesssting potionsss we ussse."
Harry didn't miss the disappointed microgesture on Wormtail's face. He looked as though his favourite bank holiday had just been cancelled. Indefinitely.
"Take heart my dear rodent," Voldemort grabbed Wormtail's face and forced him to look up. "You will be assssissssting me in breaking The Black Sssnake completely sssoon enough. As faithful as he usually isss, we need him completely broken to assssure his continued loyalty. This will sssurely break every remnant of the black snake'sss ressssistanccce."
It took every fragment of Harry's will to keep from erupting in rage. He knew if he expressed too intense an emotion, especially anger, Voldemort would surely find out about his covert spying. He pushed his feelings deep and payed attention once more.
Unfortunately, he never found out what the latest mission was, for Severus shifted once again in his sleep, pulling his arm away in the process.
Worn from his own injuries, Harry attempted to reestablish the connection, but encountered only a dark, empty abyss for his efforts. Even when the mark on Severus's arm became accessible again, when he turned on his back once more, Harry could not find Voldemort's thoughts. It was no wonder, for The Dark Lord was no longer calling Severus. The Dark Mark was only as warm as the rest of his flesh was.
Nice and warm. Determined not to disturb Snape, Harry gingerly lay his head on Snape's arm and snuggled against his father's body as both men lay on their sides. Because Harry was still considerably shorter than his father, he felt even more secure, as though his father were literally wrapped around him.
It was strange. This yearning to belong to some one had followed him virtually all of his life. Even though the Dursleys had always resented him, he had still wanted to please them, at least up until a few years ago. He had not been subservient to them merely to avoid their punishments, but to feel accepted by them, even if he was only seen as a burden to them. He still belonged to them nonetheless, he was their burden.
When he had met Ron's family, Harry nearly felt envy for his best friend. He had always longed for parents, siblings and a loving home, after all. Thankfully, the Weasleys accepted him as one of their own. Those times at the Burrow had been the happiest in his memories.
So vehement was Harry's need to belong, that he all but agreed to live with Sirius Black, even though he had been wary of him mere hours before their meeting. Even though Sirius was not a blood relative, the fact that he had ties with his parents, Lily and James Potter, and that he expressed the desire to take Harry in, was enough for him. A living Godfather was far more than Harry had ever dared hope for. Leaving the Dursleys would have only been an added endowment to the enticing package. Harry doubted he would have hesitated to live with him, even if Sirius were indeed a criminal in the true sense of the word. Surely Harry would not consider living with the murderer of his parents, but he would have had no qualms against Sirius if he were merely a burglar, or a sports hooligan. So long as he did not have to bail him out of jail too often.
Having a living parent was something Harry had never dared to even think about, although he had always yearned for a family. The Mirror of Erised had confirmed that as his deepest desire. All those nights he lay in that darkened cupboard, or later in his bed in Gryffindor tower, he longed to have what other students often took for granted. How pleasant it would be to have a parent concerned for Harry simply because he was Harry and not the boy who lived? And what must it be like to have the memories of countless stories told to him lovingly by a mother or father, as Dudley's parents had done for their son. Even when he entered his teenage years, he still enjoyed the stories Molly Weasley, or Albus Dumbledore told him, at his bedside or elsewhere.
At other times he just wanted a parent to reassure him that there were not monsters unseen in the darkness. As he grew, the shape of the monsters changed. Last year, loneliness manifested that monster, and pursued Harry relentlessly during his summer spent isolated from the wizarding world. The monster devoured him slowly when he lost his beloved Godfather, Sirius Black . He felt as though the amorphous monster were eating away at his insides, killing him slowly, inexorably...
Harry was still amazed at how quickly he had clung to Severus Snape when he learned the truth about him. Ironic that this was once the one person in the world, other than Voldemort, that Harry could truly say he hated. Ever since he entered Hogwarts, the man had been a total git towards him, and seemed to be trying to get him, or his friends expelled at the most minuscule provocation. In his haste and anger, Harry had even blamed this man for the death of his Godfather.
How strange that this should be the same man who grieved for his very life so long ago. Harry's father had loved him, even before the man knew of his existence. Knowing that he was once loved was a remarkable, yet alien, feeling for Harry. He knew that Lily and James had loved him, but it was not something he thought much on. It made him even happier that his father still loved his little green-eyed angel after all these years. The fact that Severus Snape disliked Harry Potter mattered little now. He loved, or at the very least tolerated, his preborn-angel, now flesh, and that was enough for Harry at the moment.
It was enough.
Harry fell asleep safely in his father's arms at long last. Never in his life had he felt more content, or secure from anything that could harm him. His father was here now, and everything would be just fine. For the first time, Harry slept without any penumbra of the nightmares which had plagued him virtually every night of his young life thus far.
And for the first time in years, Severus dreamed not of beatings at the hands of his own father, nor tortures at the hands of Voldemort and the other Death Eaters, or even of the potions which had comforted him when nothing else could. This night, Severus dreamed only of the pre-born angel whose spirit he had felt at times when things seemed their darkest. The spirit he would secretly talk to, when his only companions were the reagents in his labs. In these dreams, the spirit was no longer a spirit, but a living and breathing entity. And the boy loved him, despite time, despite the bad choices he had made, despite the life of a spy he currently led. And for the first time in so many years, Severus allowed himself to begin to reciprocate a small measure of that affection in return.
The following days were largely spent keeping up with the high demand for potions in the infirmary. Over the next week, more and more wounded people turned up beneath the rubble of ruined buildings where battles had taken place. Still other witches and wizards were discovered wandering aimlessly through wooded areas, or else laying in open fields, too injured or disoriented to hobble to safely. By the end of the week, two entire floors of Hogwarts had been converted into a makeshift hospital to house the wounded.
Severus and Harry spent many hours talking as they brewed the healing potions, or rather Harry did nearly all of the talking while Severus either listened sullenly, or answered in monosyllables. It seemed pointless to Severus to say much of anything at all, for Harry knew so much about him as it was.
When Harry spoke of subjects taught in muggle schools however, Severus was keenly interested. He later asked Harry so much about the science of chemistry that the teen quickly became flustered, and fell silent for the rest of the day.
Although Harry was almost completely healed by the start of the second week, Severus's healing progressed far more slowly, and he needed to rest frequently throughout the day.
"Here then," Harry would often say, "why not take a healing potion?"
"NO! I do not require it," or something to that nature, was Severus's reply.
"But why won't you take a healing potion?" Harry asked, the exasperation more markedly evident each time he repeated the question.
"That is none of your concern!"
"And I'm the one who is supposedly arrogant?" Harry said, barely audibly. "You'd have to be far more arrogant to refuse a healing potion when you obviously need one! No need to look so high and mighty all the time, you know."
"Potter! Mind what you're doing!" Severus hissed, watching in apprehension as Harry stirred the contents of the caldron a little too fiercely, "you've destabilised the compound! Get out of the way!"
"Wha-?"
Severus lifted Harry into his arms and staggered a safe distance away, taking cover behind a large caldron. Less than three seconds later, the potion formed a thick froth and exploded, sending pewter fragments and distributing the potion itself throughout the room.
The hot droplets of potion rained upon the father and son. To Harry, it was no more burdensome than a game a quiditch played during moderate rainfall in warm weather; but to Severus, it was an entirely different matter. Lacerations appeared everywhere the potion came in contact with his flesh, and raised welts resulted in the areas where the potion had soaked through Severus's many layers of black clothing.
Vociferating softly, and that was because Severus stubbornly kept his mouth closed throughout, Severus sprinted to the washroom, casting his potion-soaked clothes off as he went.
Thinking that the potion could potentially do the same harm to him, Harry dashed into the washroom after Severus, tearing off his own clothes. He opened the faucets and stood beneath the heavy spray of the shower. He rubbed his skin vigorously, in an effort to rid himself of every vestige of the potion.
Harry turned his attention to the adjacent shower, where Severus was similarly attempting to wash the potion off of his body. Harry was bewildered at the whole situation. While he had suffered no adverse reactions whatsoever, Severus, by contrast, looked as though he had been exposed to the sulphuric acid rich troposphere of the planet Venus.
"Father?" Harry could only stare as some of the welts on Severus's pale flesh became more prominent, while others broke open beneath the shower's spray. "What's happening? Why is your body reacting that way? We've both had the potion spilled on us! Are you allergic to it?"
"Go on with you!" Severus yelled, attempting to cover himself.
One of the lacerations on Severus's shoulders burst open, sending bright red blood sluicing over his body. "Gods! I'll call Madam Pomfrey..."
"You'll do no such thing!" Severus grabbed Harry's wrist and pulled him back, causing the youth to slip on the tiles and land hard on the floor. "You'll cleanse both yourself and the mess your carelessness has left in the laboratory!"
"But what about you? You need..."
"I need you to stop staring at me like that! One would surmise that you've never seen the body of another human male before."
"Oh, right," Harry averted his eyes quickly, "sorry sir."
Later that evening, although Severus insisted that he felt better than he appeared, Harry suspected that something was seriously wrong. The potion accident seemed to have diminished him greatly, odd indeed for one whose livelihood involved potions. Harry questioned him about it, but Severus would either evade the question completely, claim that it was nothing at all to be concerned about, or would simply berate Harry for being an infernal spalpeen who asked too many questions.
"Harry, that will be enough potions for today." Severus said, looking somewhat more exhausted than normal a few days later. "I need to lie down for a while. Amuse yourself as you wish for the rest of the day."
"Got a telly father?" Harry joked.
"A what? Oh. No, of course I haven't got a telly." Severus groused, tossing his soiled lab clothes into the neutralizing potion and sinking into the bath. "Why not try transfiguring something into one? And make it run on something other than eckletricity, for we have no eckelectricity in the castle."
Harry regarded his father sadly. The condition of the man's wounds did not appear all that much improved, and they still hindered his movements considerably. Moreover, his father had a fever which had persisted for nearly two weeks, no doubt caused in part by the injuries. Fevers were dangerous if they lasted for more than a week weren't they?
"Well Pot- ...uh...Harry, are you going to stand there all day watching me?"
"Oh. I'm sorry about staring, I'm just concerned about you, that's all."
Severus's initial reaction was to scoff. It had been many years since another living soul cared for him, and the fact that Harry resembled James Potter unnerved him even now. "Do you not wish to fly on your broom?" Severus asked, sinking beneath the surface of the bathwater whilst awaiting Harry's answer.
"No, father," Harry replied softly before Severus resurfaced, "I'm going to heal you as I promised."
Just as Harry was retrieving his wand, Harry heard a faint pop in the fireplace. "Severus?" came the headmaster's voice. "Harry?"
"Headmaster Dumbledore?" Harry called, scampering to the main part of Severus chambers to greet the Headmaster.
Professor Dumbledore stepped through, dark soot all over his flamboyant cobalt robes . "Hello, Harry. How are you this fine day?"
After a little conversation and a bit more coaxing, the Headmaster managed to convince Harry to leave the dungeons with him. The boy needed some recreation, if not a change of scenery at least. He had not left the dungeons in quite a number of days after all.
Harry visited with people he knew in the infirmary, as well as with Arthur Weasley, who had his whole family at his bedside today.
"So tell me Harry," Arthur began, sounding extremely excited. Too excited for a man so badly hurt. "What exactly is an AK-47, and what is its primary function?"
After an elaborate explanation, and turning all the Weasley's faces pale in the process, Ron and Harry left to walk alone on the school grounds.
"Is it true that you're getting on with the greasy git now?" Ron asked once they were alone in the courtyard.
"He's not a greasy git!" Harry shouted in a very uncharacteristic way, looking for a moment as though he were about to punch his best friend.
"Whoah, sorry mate." Ron backpedalled. "No need to get so angry or anything, it's just that Fred and George said that you were all cuddly with Professor Snape. I figured they were just joking as usual."
"Joking is what they do best. You know that better than anyone." Harry responded without giving much information at all. He quickly steered the conversation into another, lighter direction. It was pleasant having Ron to talk with again, and the two friends later got onto antiquated school brooms and played a little one on one Quidditch on the deserted pitch.
Of late, Severus, who Harry and Ron compared with a nocturnal bat in the past, seldom had the energy to remain awake more than a few hours beyond nightfall. As Harry was about to retire, several nights later, Harry noticed Severus thrashing wildly in his sleep.
"No...no..." Severus protested, struggling against an assailant he saw in his dreams.
Harry wondered if he should try to wake his father, or if he should just observe for a while. Severus turned flat on his back, appearing as though his arms were being restrained against the bed. He thrashed his head from side to side in an effort to break free, but yelped as though some one had slapped him hard across the cheek.
"No more! Please, release me! I can bear no more!" Severus screamed arching his back.
Harry gently placed a hand on his father's forehead, and gasped. Severus's forehead was very warm, perhaps dangerously so. The fever had worsened, in all likelihood, this was all because of the potion master's stubbornness to heal his own wounds.
Harry could not bear to watch any longer. He grasped Snape's upper arm and shook him gently. "Wake up! It's all right, you're drea..."
"STOP!" Snape screamed, just as his fist collided with Harry's jaw, sending the youth reeling off of the opposite edge of the bed.
Although Harry had been punched before by schoolyard bullies, as well as by his own cousin, this blow hurt infinitely more than all of the others combined. Not physical pain exactly. This pain ran far deeper. He knew his father had not intended to hurt him, but Harry could not stem the flow of tears that coursed down his cheeks without the slightest vestige of mercy.
"Harry?" Severus called wearily, peering over the edge of the bed.
Harry hid his face in his hands, and turned away, facing the dark granite of the wall.
End Part Twelve
