Remembrance and Renewal by Avatar Arkmage and Nigel Tatsuya
Chapter Nineteen: Renewal
"Now Draco," Dr. Payne said, replacing the blankets on Draco's body. "You should be fine, you haven't suffered any ill effects from running off like that. Now drink your smoothie and..."
Draco fought to restrain himself from sneering at the young physician, but the muggle did not miss even the smallest gesture. His eyes had been trained to be very perceptive in that way. He had encountered all too many patients who downplayed their suffering. "...What's wrong?"
"Why were they torturing my father?" the pale boy fought to keep his tone polite, but he knew his eyes were starting to betray their contempt for the muggles.
"Torturing!" Dr Payne stepped back literally at that.
"They sewed his mouth with metal wires, Dr PAIN!" Draco replied, his tone fully disdainful now. "Why did your people do that? Why are they trying to make my father suffer? You don't want him telling anyone that your friends are hurting him? You plan to serve him all the good food this hospital has and then you'll tease him because he can't eat any of it?"
"Your people?' You're different from the rest of us in some way?" Dr. Payne fell, rather than sat, in the chair next to Draco's bed. "Draco, we would never intentionally torture anyone. We chose this line of work because we enjoying helping, not hurting people."
"Why does my dad's jaw have wires in it, then?" Draco asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
"The reason I imagine that your father's mouth is wired is because his jaw was broken wasn't it?" Dr. Pain reasoned, remembering the police report on how this boy's unfortunate family had been caught in an ugly hooligan fight at a football game.
"In more than one place!" Draco replied, his anger now transferring back to the Dark Lord and his minions.
"Well, that explains it then. When a patient's jaw is broken, we have to secure it so that it heals properly. " The doctor explained, drawing crude diagrams on his notepad. "If we do not, it may not heal correctly aligned, and your father will have trouble chewing, or even talking."
"Trouble chewing?" Draco asked, starting to become intrigued once more by the methods non-magical people employed to do things witches and wizards could do with relative ease.
"Yes, your father's bite could end up crooked." Dr Payne explained, drawing another crude diagram. "That could cause anything from discomfort in his face when he chews, or it could cause him to damage his teeth or the inside of his mouth itself. So it has to heal aligned."
"So what are you feeding him since he can't chew right now?"
"You're such a wonderful boy, caring so much about your father." Dr. Payne said, putting the smoothie in the boy's hand. "He can't have solid food yet, so we give him his nutrients in the form of meal replacement drinks or in smoothies. Speaking of which, you'd better drink yours, the ice will start melting."
Draco sniffed the contents of the cup, wondering if muggles were really devious enough to drug patients to make them more compliant. The sweet and fruity smell was so enticing that he started sipping right away.
"I have other patients to see, but I'll be back later." Dr. Payne said as he started for the door. "By the way, are you going to tell me how you got that black eye?"
"Bloody Granger..." Draco muttered while sucking on the straw.
"What was that?"
"Uh... uh...I said a bloody stranger." Draco replied, enjoying his honeydew melon smoothie. "And no, I don't want to talk about it."
"Very well then..." Dr. Payne departed.
Madam Pomfrey and Dr. Chang fell out of Dumbledore's fireplace, looking like they had both attempted to go through the floo at the same time. Neither of them made to rise off the floor of the Headmaster's office and crawled directly toward the unmoving potions master, and the shrunken, battered Harry.
"Good Heavens!" Madam Pomfrey fretted at the sight of the bruising all over the child Harry's skin. "What's happened?"
"He's dead." Dr. Chang sniffled after a hasty examination of Severus.
"What? No! How did all this happen?" Madam Pomfrey demanded, taking a handkerchief out of her robes and dabbing at her eyes with it, before throwing off the tiny garments on Severus' chest and tearing open his gowns and assessing the damage. "Did Severus attempt to do magic again?"
Albus Dumbledore took the sobbing Harry into his arms and returned to his large chair. Without a ghost of the twinkle that normally graced his blue eyes, he recounted what had transpired just moments before Severus's unexpected death.
"And how about you? Are you feeling okay Harry?" Dr. Chang asked, as she examined the youth whilst he huddled against the headmaster's beard.
"NO!" Harry cried so loudly that Fawkes was startled off of his perch. "I feel...I feel sad!"
"That's understandable." Dr. Chang swallowed hard. "I meant to ask if you're in pain."
"No, it doesn't hurt very much." Harry replied, motioning to the extensive bruising on his torso. "I'm used to being bruised like this."
Dr. Chang shivered at that. Had Harry Potter been hurt so often in his childhood that this kind of thing no longer bothered him? She looked into his reddened green eyes, and saw the same expression she had observed so many times during her stint in a muggle hospital. The boy had been abused.
Madam Pomfrey displayed a complete lack of professionalism as she catalogued the fatal injuries on her long time friend and most difficult patient's body. She sobbed as she went about her task, alternating between words of sympathy and words of objurgation at the life the man had chosen to live.
The red and gold Phoenix hopped across the floor and perched on Madam Pomfrey's lap. Fawkes trilled softly as the grieving woman patted his red head. "Sorry Fawkes, but we can do nothing for him now. Even if we try, the Interventio Interferous potion in his blood would just mutilate his body more." The nurse gingerly traced a large fissure across Severus' abdomen with her supple fingers. The damage had occurred from the inside outward, and the contents of the man's abdomen could be seen down its centre.
Fawkes hopped off of Madam Pomfrey's lap and onto an unblemished area just below Severus' navel. He lowered his head over the deepest portion of the fissure and started to cry. The pearlescent phoenix tears fell directly into the wound.
"Thank you for you compassion, Fawkes." Albus lamented to the brilliant red and gold avian. "But I fear you will not be able to help Severus..."
"Albus, Harry, Ayame!" Poppy interrupted, her voice filled with a jubilance that appeared very displaced. "Look!"
Instead of violently reacting to the magical factors in the phoenix tears, Severus' torn flesh accepted the healing compound willingly, and mended itself rapidly where the precious fluid had been absorbed. Ayame, Albus and Poppy charged into action and went to assist the magnificent avian.
"How is this possible?" Ayame asked as she attached a portable monitor to the man's chest and began repairing the damage to Severus' heart and lungs.
"It would appear that Harry removed the Interventio Interferous potion from Severus' body." Albus said.
"So where did he put it?" Madam Pomfrey asked as she held her wand over one of Severus's more severe wounds.
Ayame shrugged in response, and closely adjusted and regulated each organ as it was repaired and their functions restored, while Albus lifted the additional strain from Severus' now furiously beating heart as the two witches worked.
"OW! Owee! My hand, my hand!" Harry exclaimed as he tried to close a cut on Severus' leg. The tip of his fingers tore themselves open on protest at Harry's use of magic. "I only wanted to help!"
"Harry, you have already done more than your share." Albus said, wrapping the boy's fingers in a clean cloth and applying pressure to halt the bleeding. "We are all grateful to you."
"Does this mean I can't use my magic any more?"
Albus was about to respond, but he was interrupted by the sound of a determined, forceful gasp followed by a series of hard coughs and more raspy inhalations. To all present, the sound was like the first warm breeze playing along the undersides of the first leaves of spring after a harsh Winter that had lasted for far too long.
To everyone's surprise, Harry bolted from the room, and returned shortly thereafter with several bottles of potions in his arms.
"Father!" He shouted, kneeling and pulling his sire's head onto his tiny lap.
"Harry?" Severus asked, his obsidian eyes still unable to focus properly.
"We made these the other day, remember?" Harry said, taking Severus' trembling hand and placing one on the phials in it.
"Yes..." Severus whispered, his voice still weak as the witches continued spelling away the blood spilled throughout his chest cavity and repairing his lungs.
"We made these because we wanted to make hurt people better again." Harry said, taking the vial back and unstoppering it. "I want to make you all better again."
"Just a moment, Harry." Dr. Chang forestalled him. "We have to make sure his digestive tract can take it first." The mediwitch moved the scanning equipment lower.
Harry nervously stroked the sides of Severus' face as the man's head still rested in the boy's lap. Dr. Chang moved her hands down to Severus' abdomen and muttered a series of incantations and made a few deft motions with what looked like a steel wand. Severus was about to tell Harry how annoyed he was becoming, and would reprimand Harry most harshly if he didn't stop stroking his face, when Dr. Chang nodded. Severus could be given the potion.
Severus almost choked. Harry, in his now appropriately childlike enthusiasm, had poured the whole vial of soft tissue healing potion down Severus' throat faster than he could swallow, causing the horrible taste of the potion to completely fill his mouth beforehand.
"BLECH!" Severus gagged. He was about to launch into an angry tirade, but found that he was not aggravated enough to do it convincingly. For the first time in roughly a fortnight, he could breathe without pain, and soon he could move about without each step being pure torture. Best of all, he could probably use his magics once more and work in his beloved potions lab again unfettered.
From just above his face, he heard little Harry's innocent laughter at his reaction to the potion's bitter taste. Oddly, it didn't bother him as much as it should. Child Harry's laughter was somehow...pleasant, even wondrous...
"Aww!" Harry asked, leaning over and kissing his father on the forehead before he realised what he was doing and pulled back abruptly. "It tastes bad?"
"Like the residue from the bottom of a dirty caldron left to ferment for a month!" Severus replied, his voice stronger as the pain in his chest began to subside.
"EWWWW!" Harry made a face so cute that even Albus, Ayame and Poppy had to laugh. "Why do you taste the stuff from the bottom of your caldron anyway?"
"Who said I engaged in such an activity?" Severus asked, his dark eyes wide.
"You did! You said the potion tastes like the icky stuff from the bottom of a dirty caldron left rotten for a month.'" Harry replied in all seriousness.
When Severus could safely be moved again, father and son returned to the infirmary. With the exception of the bruising and lacerations which had occurred when Harry removed the potion from Severus' body and his shortened stature, Harry was fine and would require only a day or two of hospitalisation.
"So how long do I have to stay a little kid?" Harry asked Madam Pomfrey after she gave him a lollipop.
"Now that you have the Interventio Interferous potion in your body," she paused briefly to adore the sight of young Harry sucking on the confection. "You won't be able to take the counterpotion until it works its way out of your system."
"What if the potion never leaves my body!" Harry said, the sweet inhibiting his speech somewhat.
"Then you can grow up all over again. "
"What!"
"Your father never intended for the Polyjuice IV to be used by a teenager, " Madam Pomfrey replied, putting the some of the equipment away. "Who knows how long it will take for Interventio Interferous to work its way out of such a small body?"
"WAAAAAAH!" Harry bawled, deftly holding the sweet in the side of his mouth as he did so.
"Ohh," Madam Pomfrey said, wrapping an arm around the frightened child. "It will eventually work its way out, but we really don't know how long it will take. You'll have to stay as a child for about two weeks, maybe three."
"Or forever!" Harry sniffled.
Severus would have needed at least several days of intensive medical attention. But he would not hear of it...
"Can you feel this?" Dr. Chang said as she gently waved her wand over the tips of Severus' fingers on his re-attached arm.
"Yes," Severus was too happy at having his left arm reattached to make a snide remark worthy of him. "With the exception of a little sensitivity in my elbow, it feels fine."
"It will hurt considerably for the next few days." Dr. Chang said, moving her wand up and down his left arm, cringing when she passed over the Dark Mark. "You can either take a potion for the pain, or you may continue on the muggle painkillers..."
"Never again!" Severus sneered, remembering the horrible nightmares which resurfaced shortly after he had started taking muggle drugs.
"Well," Dr. Chang rolled his sleeve back down. "Let me know if it gives you any problems. Rest if for the next few days. No heavy lifting, and no over-exerting ...SEVERUS!"
The potions master had tossed off his hospital gowns and was in the process of retrieving his everyday clothes from one of the nearby cupboards. Severus quickly selected a set of clothes Albus had brought in for him when he had just been hospitalized and started to put them on.
"PROFESSOR SNAPE!" Madam Pomfrey chided as Severus was pulling on his underwear, fumbling slightly with the limited dexterity of his newly re-attached arm. "YOU ALMOST DIED TONIGHT! You can't leave the hospital wing! I will not give you a release!"
Severus said silkily. "I have been here long enough to find your face even more disagreeable than I normally do, Poppy. And now that I can perform magic on my own again, I'll not be requiring your assistence."
"Well I find your behaviour even more vexing that you probably find my face!" Madam Pomfrey retorted. "But you still have to stay. Just because you can walk again you think you're fine, well you're still weak and your internal organs are still healing. If your heart stops when Peeves hits you with a water balloon in the dungeon, who is going to help you?"
"Peeves is a fool if he hits me with a water balloon and stops my heart, for I then shall also be a ghost, and a poltergeist at that, and as such, I shall return his courtesies tenfold." Severus said, although whether there was sarcasm in the remark, no one could ascertain. "I will hit him with far worse than water balloons in the afterlife, be assured."
"Please father," little Harry had wandered out of his bed and past the divider into the triage area.
"Harry, I've been here too long." Severus said, hastily fastening the many buttons on his white shirt, his left hand still moving slower than its partner. "The many injured here probably expended the stores of the healing potions and will require more in the near future..."
"Father, if you didn't have your clothes, you'd have no choice but to stay here, right?" Harry ran over, knicked Severus' trousers and frock coat, and ran back into the main area of the hospital wing.
"HARRY!" Severus stormed after the small boy, and pursued him several times around the ward. He stopped only when he noticed all the attention focussed on him, or rather his undercrackers.
"WHAT!" he demanded of the group of red headed witches and wizards congregated around Mr. Weasley's bed, before stomping back to the triage area.
Harry scampered after his father, and smiled when he saw the dark-haired wizard reluctantly donning a set of hospital gowns.
"HARRY! You..." Severus growled, but the rest of his admonition died when the young boy hugged him.
"I love you, father." Harry said, cursing his child's mind and body for being so blunt and truthful. "I wouldn't want to be all alone in the hospital..."
"You have your friends here..." Severus responded. "You've got Miss Chang, Mr. Weasley and his siblings..."
"Well I like them fine." Harry said, holding on tightly to Severus' trousers and frock coat that the man would not be tempted to take them and flee the ward. "But I want my father too. And I want you to stay here until you're well again, because I want you alive for many years."
Severus chafed at the adoration, which he still did not feel he deserved fully.
"And you still don't have my permission to die. So you'd better stay alive."
While it was easier to argue with the teenaged Harry, he found he could not do the same with the far younger version of him, and only nodded his assent. Perhaps because the child's face was so angelic, or perhaps it was because this version of Harry spoke his mind even more freely than his older counterpart did...
...Or perhaps he reciprocated some of the boy's great love.
"Very well." Severus sighed, smoothing the thin fabric of the hospital gowns "let us return to our beds."
"That kid looks just like Harry Potter!" Ginny squealed to her brothers.
The Weasleys approached the little boy in a phalanx formation.
"Hi Ron!" the little boy said, sitting up abruptly. "Mrs. Weasley, Fred, Bill, George, Charlie, Ginny."
"Bloody hell, Harry!" Ron squeaked, recognising his best friend's mannerisms but not understanding his diminutive stature, "what's happened to you?"
Harry opened his mouth wide in astonishment. "You sweared!"
"So you have to stay a little kid for two or three weeks? Maybe even longer?" Ron squeaked after Harry explained his encounter with an experimental potion from Snape's laboratory. "Bloody Hell!"
"RON!" Harry jumped out from under the covers and cupped a hand over his best friend's mouth. "No swearing! Gee! you have a foul mouth."
"Sorry," Ron said, creasing his freckled nose. "But at least I didn't say something like Holy Sh--'"
"Ronald Weasley!"Molly Weasley shouted, batting her son on the shoulder.
"That's bad!" Harry said taking his pillow and whacking Ron in the face. "You're not supposed to swear!"
Ron took one of Harry's other pillows and swatted the small boy over the head with a lot less force than he normally would have. It had been awkward at first. All Ron and the rest of the Weasleys present could do initially was stare at the miniature version of Harry Potter. With the exception of his small stature, childlike demeanor and high pitched voice, he was the same boy the Weasleys had had over at their home in the past, and the same boy that had ended the first reign of the Dark Lord.
After a fair amount of lighthearted conversation, Mrs. Weasley, Bill, George, Charlie, Fred and Ginny had returned to Mr. Weasley's bedside. Ron remained with his best friend, seated at the foot of his bed.
"So how did you know which potion to take?" Ron asked.
"Cho helped me pick it out because she's in Da-Professor Snape's advanced potions class." Harry replied. "She comes visit her grandad almost every day. Her grandad is the one over there." Harry got onto his knees and pointed to the elderly wizard on the bed next to his, who still was literally half-man/half-dragon at the moment. YiChung read what appeared to be a magical newspaper printed in Chinese, and held it fairly close to his face with one very human hand, and one scaly claw.
"Harry it's not polite to point at people." Ron whispered.
"Sorry, Grandpa Chang!" Harry leaned over his bedrail as far as he could until he was just inches away from the partially transformed man.
"Eh?" the aged wizard looked perplexed. "What for?"
"Because I pointed at you, and its not nice to point at people." Harry said in contrition.
"Ah, you're such a good boy, Harry." YiChung commended, before looking past Harry's bed at Severus, who appeared to be asleep. He would be sure to tell the boy's father of Harry's fine manners. Professor Snape must have been an exemplary father to have such a well behaved son. "It takes a great person to admit when they've done something wrong, although I took no offense your pointing at me. You are a child, after all. And children express themselves in ways that people who have seen many turns of the seasons tend to forget over time. It is nice to have young ones to teach us what many of us tend to forget."
The silvery haired wizard's attention returned once more to his newspaper, pulling out an inner section to read, and putting the remainder onto his shiny scaled chest. He had remained in his half-man/half-dragon state for nearly two weeks, following being hit by two curses in the middle of his transformation. The strain on his human sized heart to adequately circulate blood throughout his larger body was starting to show. The scales on his clawed legs, and long, serpentine tail were starting to lose some of its iridescence, and had taken on a sickly, cyanotic appearance. His long white beard, which had been sparse before, was even thinner now, showing virtually all the skin through the fine wisps of facial hair.
Harry turned back to Ron, and continued their pillow fight until Madam Pomfrey returned to do her rounds and chided the boys for being disruptive. After apologising to the austere nurse and to everyone else in the immediate area, Ron reclined next to Harry, deciding that some quiet conversation would be a suitable alternative to play fighting. Ron knew that he and the rest of the Weasleys would be leaving for the night in a little while, and wanted to enjoy some time with his best friend, however tiny he might have been.
"So why did you take the potion in first place?" Ron, who was now right next to Harry's ear, asked.
Because Harry now had a child's brain with which to reason, he answered Ron's question as completely as a true child would, giving every detail of the events and then some. Although Harry had not intended to do so, he let slip the minute detail that Severus Snape was his father.
"The greasy git is your father!" Ron gasped, his face turning so pale it could only be described as cadaverous. "But isn't James Pot-"
Harry jumped up and slapped Ron across the face, the loud sound of the impact causing Severus to spring out of his own bed to get involved on Harry's behalf. "Don't you call my father a greasy git!'" Harry grabbed Ron by the collar and made to swat him again, and Severus knew he would actually have to intervene Ron's behalf.
"Harry," Severus gently, yet firmly took hold of Harry's wrist and sat him back down. "That will be quite enough."
"Ron called you a greasy git!'" Harry said, rubbing tears from his eyes before launching into a full blown bawling session and wiping his eyes on his father's gowns. "And you're not a greasy git!"
"Mr. Weasley, why did you call me a greasy git?'"Professor Snape asked, managing to look imposing even though he was clad only in white hospital gowns.
"Sorry sir, but Fred and George, well that's what they called you, and it just sort of...slipped out." Ron replied sheepishly.
"Really, Mr. Weasley I am disappointed." Severus said silkily, hardly affected by the use of a name he had heard whispered from as far back as his own days at Hogwarts. "I would have expected more originality from Hogwart's official pranksters and the esteemed best friend of our resident celebrity. Be assured though Mr. Weasley, had this occurred while Hogwarts was in session, I would not have hesitated to give you a week's worth of detention for your disrespect."
More out of regard for his best friend, rather than any contrition he felt for his actions, Ron lowered his head. "I'm sorry I called you a 'greasy git,' sir. I won't do it again."
After Severus nodded silently and returned to his bed, Harry reclined, placing his head next to Ron's once more. "So so so so!" Harry started. "YOUR dad's hair is so red I'll bet he washes it with ketchup! And he says eckeltricity!"
Ron looked confused. "Well isn't it really called eckeltricity?" Ron asked, never hearing the muggle power matter called anything different. "And he does not use ketchup!"
End Part Nineteen
