A/N: My goodness this took longer to update than I had hoped… Finals week and the preparation got in my way :/ But it's winter break now! :D As always, I do not own. Warnings: Language, Self-Injury

Chapter 4: Athazagoraphobia

It took all of Severus Snape's will power to retain his composure and keep his expression in its normal collected state.

He had just been puked on.

Never, in all fifteen years of his teaching career, had he been puked on by a student. Sure he had been witness to several unfortunate results of potions gone awry, had had to deal with sick students every term without fail, and had even had to attend to nursing fellow Death Eaters who had suffered the wrath of the Dark Lord's temper. But he had never had the unpleasant experience of having vomit expelled onto his person. And quite frankly, he had hoped he would have never had to.

With a vast amount of energy, Severus pried his mind away from the stinking sludge that had just been expelled onto his front and shifted its focus to the teenager in front of him.

Unfortunately for the boy, his troubled stomach was not yet finished with him.

Harry continued to heave, despite the fact that nothing but foamy bile seemed to be left and the forcefulness of his retching forced him to his knees.

Severus watched wordlessly as the boy crumpled onto the floor. While he was alarmed by the boy's physical state, he sure as hell wasn't going to let it show, which included not holding his thin shoulders up or keeping his shaggy hair from drooping into his sweaty face.

Finally, Harry's stomach stopped its spasming, and with weak knees, he began to feebly stand back up. Seeing his obvious difficulty, Severus grabbed onto one of the boy's upper arms and yanked him the rest of the way up, perhaps a little more gruffly than he had intended to.

'Actually, I wished I could have done it with even more force…'

Panting hard, Harry recollected himself before catching sight of his professor. Severus watched with mild amusement as horror dawned upon the teenager's face, his mouth falling open at the sight of the man in front of him.

"Prof-professor Snape, I-I'm…"

"Silence Potter," Snape said, cutting him off. He calmly pulled out his wand. Harry recoiled, and it was not an action Severus missed. For that moment, however, he let it go. The boy probably thought he was going to hex him into oblivion for throwing up all over him. Not that far of a stretch of the imagination actually…

"Tergeo," he muttered, and instantly the front of his robes went back to their normal, spotless black selves. Severus looked on as Harry's face eased a little at his professor's clean clothes. "Now," he continued, surveying Harry's sweating and shivering form with disgust," I believe it is time to discuss your punishment for skipping my class this afternoon."

Harry couldn't believe it. Snape had just assigned him detention after he had puked out his guts in front of him. And even more unbelievable was that he had thrown up on his professor and the dour man didn't seem to be angry over it!

'I've got to be dreaming…If this was the real Snape I'd be dead right now….

But instead, Snape had begun to walk down the hall towards the dungeons. Noticing that his student was not following him, he turned around.

"Stop lolly-gagging Potter, unless you wish to receive punishment for simple mindedness as well."

Not wanting to tempt the man with another opportunity to punish him, Harry attempted to shake off the nausea that continued to wash over him and unsteadily followed his professor down into the dungeons.

Severus kept his eyes glued on Harry as the boy silently sat scrubbing cauldrons in the back corner of the classroom. Something was most definitely wrong with him.

Ignoring the fact that Potter had gotten violently ill just under an hour ago, there was something about the boy that was amiss. When he assigned him his punishment, the usually bull-headed and stubborn Gryffindor had been wordless, and did not even glance up at his professor. Instead, the boy simply shuffled over to the pile of cauldrons that lay waiting for him and sat himself quietly in the nearest chair and began to scrub. The more Severus watched him, the more he noticed that a vacant expression was plastered across Potter's face. Normally, the boy would be scowling at his work, a sign of his indignation clear on his face. However now there was nothing.

Silently working over him, Severus noticed something else. Although the boy seemed to be paying no attention to his chore, the cauldrons he had finished cleaning were impeccably spotless. From what he could tell, the cauldrons were cleaner than they had ever been since he had purchased them years ago. Horace, at least, would be pleased at the task having been done for him so well. Moreover, Potter seemed to have gotten through more than half of the pile. He himself wouldn't have been able to have gotten that many done in such a short amount of time, despite his years of practice at cauldron cleaning.

"Potter!" He barked, breaking the boy from his silent work.

Slowly, Harry's arm stopped moving and looked up to make eye contact with the other man. Severus was struck by this look. The stare he was receiving was completely void of any emotion. A dark tug of five o'clock shadow hung over all of the boy's features, including his once brilliant emerald eyes. Instead of holding the light and laughter that Severus had always seen in Lily's eyes, he saw a diminished and hazy dullness that seemed almost to stare into some eternal nothing. The drastic difference in Potter's eyes and his mother's unnerved him.

"Finish with that cauldron and you may work on any school work you have yet to complete. If my class was any indication to the rest of your day, you should have plenty of work to keep even your simple mind occupied."

With his latest insult Severus had hoped to illicit some kind of response from the Gryffindor in front of him. However, Harry gave no reaction to say that he had heard him other than to get back to his mindless cleaning.

Silently, Severus opened a small drawer in the desk, reaching within it to pull forward a photograph. It was an old picture, one that accompanied him everywhere he went. It was yellowed and torn with age, and unlike the other photographs in the wizarding world, it did not move. Enclosed within the picture's edges were a boy and a girl; Lily and his fifteen year old self. He remembered this photo well; it was the last photo he and Lily would ever take together, captured on Lily's muggle camera sometime in the summer before their fifth year at Hogwarts. Despite the camera's non magical qualities and low quality, the image was still crisp and quite beautiful.

'Lily always did have an artistic flair…'

Even with the age of the picture, Severus could see the bright, auburn tones of Lily's long red hair clearly, starkly contrasted with his own black, shaggy, and unkempt hair. He looked on the photograph sadly. Both he and Lily were smiling, wide, goofy smiles that had managed to etch themselves into all of their features. They were warm and carefree, full of life and hope. He frowned bitterly. Oh how that would change. But here, captured forever, was the remainder of their friendship. As long as he had that photo, Lily would be his best friend, his only love. But Severus knew that another part of Lily lived on. Staring up at him from within his desk drawer were Lily's vibrant eyes, almost grinning at him. Those beautiful green eyes had not died with her, they lived on…

A loud thunk pulled Severus from his thoughts. Quickly slipping the picture into his robe pocket, he looked up at the source of the sound.

In the far corner where the cauldrons sat, Harry was slouched at the table, and Severus realized painfully that the sound he had heard must have been the boy's head hitting the wooden surface. He had fallen asleep… How dare the boy fall asleep in his detention!

"Potter," he said loudly, "wake up."

The boy didn't stir.

"POTTER!"

There was still no response.

At this, the potions master rose quickly and swiftly made his way to Potter.

'Perhaps I should have payed more attention to the boy's illness this evening…'

Within seconds Severus was at the boy's side and had leaned him back so as to take a look him. Snape eased a finger over Potter's eyelid, pulling it gently upward, revealing nothing but white.

'Either the boy has fallen unconscious or he's deep in sleep, though judging from earlier I would guess the latter…'

Pressing a hand against Harry's forehead, Severus could feel the heat radiating off of his student's skin and the chills that began to ripple down the boy's body. He was most definitely ill. Severus checked the time; it was past midnight already.

'Poppy is bound to be asleep by now…'

It seemed that he had no other choice. Potter would have to remain in his quarters for the night.