It was another night of quiet walking. A while after midnight the gardens became bigger and the houses fewer and in the small hours they reached the open country. It was a nice change. They left the street to walk in the grass, which was pure bliss for their paws. When the first light of dawn showed itself, they stopped by a corn field and had a simple meal.
"I´m tired," said the boy with a trace of misery in his voice.
Snape looked around to find a place to sleep the day away. The best choice seemed to be a small wood in the distance. He pointed his companion there and the boy set out towards it with a curt nod.
The potions master picked some more cobs and followed.
When they reached the thicket, they found a patch of soft moss. Snape laid his corn beside it and then they transformed again. Sleeping on the forest floor was much more comfortable if you were a cat.
The potions master woke after noon and transformed. After another simple meal of corn he sat beside his sleeping companion and started a meditation exercise. He examined one area of his mind after the other, blocking each at the end of his contemplation with a thick occlumentic wall.
He left his memories of Albus Dumbledore to examine last. The headmaster had touched the potions master´s mind on countless occasions. Perhaps, after closing away everything else, he was able to reach out for his old mentor despite the long distance, give him a message that they were alive and where he had to go looking for them.
The experience was frustrating. Snape tried his best, but he got no sign that he came ever close to success. He tried to convey that they were in a safe place, that a patronus wouldn´t put them in danger.
"Are you alright, Toby?"
The boy´s voice cut through his mental peace and the walls he had errected crumbled.
Severus Snape opened his eyes, radiating fury. "Haven´t I tought anything? Never disturb a trance, idiot!"
The boy had the decency to look sorry. "I was worried. You looked, well, dead."
Snape tried not to explode. "Dead? I´d hardly sit upright if I was dead," he spat.
The boy shuffled his feet awkwardly. "Not necessarily. Do you know those photographs of dead grave robbers in the pyramides? They have been sitting for millenia although they are dead."
Snape stood. He had the advantage of being taller than the boy and he felt this was not the moment to not use it. "Do I look like a grave robber to you?" He towered over Potter.
"On second thought, no," the boy admitted. He hung his head. "I´m sorry I interrupted you."
"You better be. I was trying to contact..." Saying Dumbledore´s name would give away their identities. "...our whitebearded friend."
"Santa? We´re lost in the middle of nowhere and you try to reach Santa?" The boy´s eyes sparkled with fury. "Besides, I thought you had to write a letter."
Snape pinched the bridge of his nose. "The other whitebearded friend, idiot. And you have to write a letter."
"What other ... oh! Oh! This one! Did you reach him?"
"No, as I was interrupted." Snape shouted the last word.
"Sorry!" piped the boy.
The irate potions master took some slow breaths to calm down. When his burning desire to strangle Potter had reduced to a distant wish to slap the boy, he spoke again. "We have some corn left. Eat and then we´ll go on."
The boy sat obediently and took a cob. He offered another to Snape. The latter shook his head. "I ate when I woke up."
"But there´s too much for me. Why don´t you have another?"
"Don´t be foolish, Jim. We don´t know when we´ll find food again. Eat as much as you can."
The boy ate two cobs hungrily, but when he started the third, he slowed down considerably, though he tried to follow his teacher´s advice and eat as much as possible. "So," he said between two bites, "you tried to reach him. How does this work?"
"If you ever mastered occlumency, you would learn that the more often two minds touch the easier it becomes to establish a connection."
Potter´s eyes flew open. "You mean the more often you break through my defences the easier it becomes for you?"
"That´s the general idea, though in your case I have to ask myself which defences you´re talking about."
The boy hung his head, but tried to cover the movement by nibbling his cob of corn.
"Our friend has touched my mind on countless occasions," Snape went on ignoring the boy´s discomfort, "in theory it should be possible to convey a message even over a distance. The problem is that usually he is the active part in our connection."
"Is that why he trusts you?" the boy asked in a small voice, "because you let him see your mind?"
Snape nodded. Better let the boy believe it. "If I wasn´t loyal to him, he´d see it in my mind."
"But Vol ... the other friend doesn´t see it. How does the whitebearded one know that you´re not fooling him like the other."
"That´s between myself and him."
"I see." Potter layed the last cob aside. "Let´s go on. I can´t eat any more."
They transformed and started this night´s journey.
-x-
Snape decided to avoid any settlements. It was safer not to be seen at all as he wasn´t sure what strategy the Dark Lord would use to look for them. Was he going to send his deatheaters to the bigger towns and cities? Or would he guess that Severus prefered the countryside to travel and go for the small villages?
Muggles were more likely to remember them in the villages as fewer strangers came there, but it was easier to find food in the country.
It was difficult to decide, but at last the need to avoid his former comrades in service of the Dark Lord won out. No settlements at all it was. As long as they found food in the fields, things could be worse.
-x-
Things became much worse this very night. Sortly before dawn it started to rain. Not the kind sort of rain, no, but the sort of rain that makes you think that the sky decided to get rid of every droplet of moisture it can find, the sort of rain that comes with wind and lightning and thunder. And occasional bouts of hail.
Within minutes the two cats were soaked to the skin and Snape wished desperately they were near a barn, a garage or a house. He even felt he´d be able to miaow his way into a warm living room, miserable as he was.
He tried to look out for a forest or some bushes, anything to fend off the heavy rain, but all he could see was flat country.
Potter, however changed direction and headed slightly to the left with determination. Snape followed as he couldn´t be parted from his charge. In the light of another bolt he saw a lonely poplar between two fields.
Snape knew that it wasn´t wise to stand under a single tree in a thunderstorm without a wand, but at his present state of soak he couldn´t care less. Potter looked as miserable as Snape felt. His fluffy fur acted like a sponge and the boy was even wetter than his teacher.
It wasn´t really dry under the tree, but they found some shelter from the worst wind and rain behind its trunk. Potter started licking his fur and with some surprise the potions master noticed that the boy managed to remove some of the water that way. Grateful for any way to better their miserable situation, the older wizard followed the younger´s lead and for a while the two cats tended to their fur in companiable silence.
Once they had done what could be done, both cowered down, trying to curl up as small as possible. Snape found he was colder than ever before in his life. Going by Potter´s shivers, the boy didn´t feel any better. At last reason won and Snape snuggled closer to the other cat. First Potter stared at him with wide eyes, but then he leant into the offered bit of warmth. Being curled up together was indeed better. Nevertheless Snape found that he didn´t want to repeat the experience if he could help it.
The little comfort they had ended when – of course muggle physics chose this tree to prove itself – a bolt of lightning struck their poplar. Splinters of wood rained down on them. Snape threw himself over the boy protectively as soon as the first piece of wood hit him.
When the downpour of debris was over the potions master crawled off the boy and started to examine himself. His fur was full of splinters, but he found that he wasn´t injured. Potter on the other hand, miaowed and yowled pitiably.
Snape transformed quickly and, after making sure that the poplar wasn´t demaged so badly that it was going to collapse on them, examined the lamenting cat in the light of the burning tree. A long fragment of wood, not unlike a small spear, stuck in Potter´s hind leg.
"Don´t move, I´ll try to remove it," said Snape. "It will hurt, but it has to be done. Don´t transform unless I tell you." He could tell that the boy was trying to follow his orders, but the pain was too much. The boy left his leg still as long as he could, but in the end he always pulled it away before Snape could complete his task.
"Potter," Snape said sternly, but he couldn´t help a trace of pity in his voice, "you´re making things worse." He tried again, to no result but another desperate yowl of the injured cat.
The potions master sighed. The boy needed to calm down. Severus Snape, ex-deatheater and trademark git, closed his eyes and steeled himself for what had to be done.
Slowly he reached out for Potters head and started to gently rub his fur behind his ears. The cat leaned into the touch and after a while it started to purr. Snape continued his ministrations for a while, silently picturing ways of killing the boy if he ever told this story. When he found that the cat was relaxed enough, the potions master grabbed the splinter and pulled.
The cat spit and rammed its claws into Snape´s hand. The wizard yelped and withdrew his hand. Potter shrank back from him when he saw that he had hurt his teacher. Snape examined his left hand. Three long, deep scratches went from the wrist down to his knuckles. He glared at Potter. "You may transform now," the potions master informed the boy through gritted teeth.
An instant later the boy lay in the place where the frightened, hurt cat had been and he was in no better condition. He shivered badly. Snape wasn´t sure whether from cold, pain or exhaustion.
"Let me see your leg."
The boy pulled up his robes obediently for the potions master to see the wound on his thigh.
Snape swore. He had hoped that the injury would keep its size in transformation. That would reduce it to a minor hurt when Potter was in his human form. Unfortunately they weren´t that lucky. The wound was nearly twenty centimeters long and quite deep. It looked as if the boy had been hit by a lance.
"That´s bad," Snape stated the obvious.
"I don´t think I can walk." Potter sounded desperate and in pain.
"I´ll try to find some herbs to help you," promised the potions master.
"Don´t be ridiculous, this is not the time of the year for herbs," moaned the boy.
"I´m aware of that," replied the older wizard," but if we´re lucky I´ll find some left-overs."
The boy snorted, but didn´t talk back again.
-x-
In the morning Snape ordered Potter to remain under the tree, the fire had burned down and the rain had nearly stopped. In case someone came near him, the boy was to transform and hide.
The potions master went to search for herbs to use on the boy´s injury. He had not much hope to find anything, especially as there seemed to be no forest nearby and the country was covered in fields; monocultural fields which contained no wild plantlife at all but an occasional patch on the edge.
Snape hiked around their tree in a wide loop and after several exhausting hours he returned with nothing but some stems of camomile.
Potter sat propped against the poplar´s trunk, he looked pained.
"Here," Snape said and handed the boy some cobs of corn. Potter grimaced as the corn was no longer sweet but nearly dry and ready for the harvest. The potions master couldn´t begrudge him the gesture, but then they were lucky the corn hadn´t been brought in yet.
"I found only some camomile," Snape went on as the boy nibbled on a cob. "When you finished your meal you´d better transform and I´ll treat the wound while you´re in cat form. The wound´s smaller then and the camomile will be enough to cover all of it."
The boy nodded and obeyed. When he had transformed he lay on his side, presenting the injury to his teacher. Snape put the herbs on the wound and the cat hissed in pain, but it remained still.
The wound treated, Snape lifted the cat and sat it into the crook of his left arm as comfortably as possible and set out to continue their journey. It wouldn´t do to stay under the tree. The place was neither especially comfortable nor safe. Hopefully he´d be able to find a better place soon.
-x-
The barn was dusty and smelled of mouse droppings and there was also an owl living in its rafters, but it had a decent roof and there was also some hay.
The potions master sat his burden down on a soft bed of the dried grass and – after checking his companion´s wound – transformed.
He slept most of the night away, but was woken in the small hours by Potter moaning beside him. The boy had transformed to his human form. Snape couldn´t tell whether it had been done deliberately while he was asleep, all he could see was that Potter was barely conscious. His forehead was covered in sweat and the boy´s hair sticked to his face. His complexion was too red and from time to time he shivered violently.
Carefully Snape lifted the boy´s robes. The wound on his leg was angry and red. This was bad. Very bad.
-x-
The potions master went searching for a vessel to get some water. A bowl, a pot, a jug, anything. He had no medicine for the boy, not even herbs, all he could do for him was wash his feverish face and offer some coolness, if he only found a means of getting water to the boy.
A rusty bucket it was. Snape wasn´t too happy with it, as it had a hole some five centimeters above its bottom and the rust certainly wouldn´t help, but it was all he could find and so it had to be used. He went outside to collect some rain water – luckily the barn´s roof was a bit askew and a strong flood of water came down at one corner of the building.
When the bucket was full up to the hole, he went back inside and sat beside Potter. The boy was feverish, he moaned from time to time and opened his unfocused eyes wide, only to fall back into near unconsciousness seconds later. Snape soaked a lappet of his sleeve in the water and washed the boy´s forehead. The youth´s moans sounded relieved at those times or at least the potions master tried to convince himself of it. He had never felt so helpless before.
Illness hadn´t been a problem for him in decades. Whenever there was a medical problem, he went to his lab and brewed a potion. Usually the problem was solved within hours, brewing time included.
But here he had nothing at hand. No potions, not even the ingredients for a herbal tea. To be exact, he even lacked clear water, so he wouldn´t even dare wash the wound.
Snape didn´t leave the barn for two days but in order to refill the bucket. At these occasions he drank some of the rain water fresh from the roof, but he didn´t dare leave the boy long enough to find something to eat. He brought fresh water to Potter in his hands.
When Snape thought things couldn´t get more desperate, the rain stopped.
-x-
There wasn´t much water left. Snape looked at the delirious boy pityingly. Soon even the small comfort of cool water on the hot face was going to be taken from him. There was nothing for the potions master left to do but watch the boy die. It seemed audacious to hope Potter´d recover without medication, food or drink.
Snape was startled from his musings by the sound of the barn door being dragged open. He stood in one smooth motion, shielding the boy with his body from whoever was about to enter.
"Who are you?" A woman of perhaps fourty-five stood beside the door. She eyed the potions master suspiciously and the trace of fear in her face wasn´t missed by the spy.
"We were cought by the storm the day before yesterday," said Snape, stepping aside a bit, enough to show the boy, but not enough to let her see any details. "My companion was hurt. We mean no harm."
The woman took in Snape´s robes. "You are wizards," she whispered. The fear, which had shown on her face only briefly, was obvious in her voice.
Snape gasped. What did this muggle know about wizards? For a muggle she was. No witch the potions master knew would be able to dress as a muggle so perfectly, not even a muggle born. Even those adopted bad habits from their poorblood friends little by little as they grew older. Had this woman been a witch, Snape would have expected at least too gaudy colours or some weird accessories, but this woman was dressed perfectly mugglish.
The pale blue jacket and blue jeans went perfectly with her blonde hair. She wore old trainers and where her jacket was open, it showed a striped t-shirt.
"How do you know?"
"I´m a squib."
"A squib?" Excellent. If they were lucky, she had contact to the wizarding community. And being a squib, she wasn´t likely to work for the Dark Lord. Perhaps there was hope for Potter.
The boy moaned behind Snape. He sat bolt upright and cried "No! Leave them be!" before he collapsed back onto his bed of hay.
Snape eyed the squib cautiously, then he decided she posed no immediate danger and sat beside Potter. He washed the boy´s forehead carefully.
"What´s wrong with him?"
The woman had come closer while the potions master worked.
Without a word Snape pulled up Potter´s robes and showed the wound.
The woman withdrew. "That´s nasty. Why didn´t you heal it? Do you hate him that much?"
"We lost our wands. I can´t heal him. If I could, I would."
The woman bit her bottom lip. She seemed deep in thought. "Can you carry him to my car?" she asked when she´d come to a decision.
Snape hadn´t heard a car earlier. He must have been absorbed in tending to the boy.
"If it´s not too far."
"Right behind the barn."
The potions master lifted the boy and followed the woman outside. He had no idea where she was going to take them, but anything was better than to let Potter die in the barn.
-x-
"I don´t have a guestroom," said the woman as she led Snape into what seemed to be the living room of her small house. "Can you hold him a bit longer? I´ll pull out the sofa."
The potions master gave a curt nod and the woman prepared a bed for Potter.
"Make him comfortable, I´ll get some medicine."
Some minutes later, she returned with a bowl of clean water, cloths and bandages. After she had placed the items on the coffee table, she produced a tube and a box from her pockets.
"It´s not much," she said awkwardly.
"It´s more than we had before," said Snape. He started to clean the wound.
-x-
The squib returned with a tray of food just when the potions master finished bandaging Potter´s leg.
"Did you give him one of the febrifugal tablets?" she asked as she set the tray down.
"I had no time to read the package insert yet." Snape pulled the blanket over the boy.
"It´s this box," said the woman and held it out to Snape. "I usually take them when I have a bad cold. They´re rather harmless and I´m afraid the boy could do with something stronger, but that´s all I have."
"It will have to do." Snape helped the boy sit up. He slapped his cheeks gently. "You have to take a tablet, Jim."
"What?" The boy was barely aware he was spoken to, but when the potions master forced the medicine between his lips and held a glass of water to his mouth, he swallowed obediently.
-x-
"My parents and two younger brothers – they were magical – were killed by the Dark Lord when I was eleven," said the woman, who had introduced herself as Selene Hammersmith. "Three of my grandparents were muggles and my older brother, Nero, was going out with a muggle girl. I wasn´t at home, when it happened. Nero and his girlfriend had taken me to the cinema. When I didn´t get a Hogwarts letter – not that anybody was surprised, they had accepted what I was earlier – my family tried to prepare me for muggle life."
"When we came back, we found that green skull hovering over the house. Nero didn´t let me go inside, but he told me what he found some years later. We went to the muggle world to hide from the Evil. It was easy for me, but hard for Nero. He´d graduated only one year before and not to use magic was torture for him."
Snape nodded. He understood that very well. He had been without a wand for barely a week, but it felt like ages and the wish to do magic became stronger and stronger.
"In the end he gave in to temptation. He was killed in ´81. Since then I´ve had no connection to the magical world. I don´t mind as it means that I´m safe. – So where are your wands?"
The potions master wondered how much he should tell Selene.
"The wizard who killed your family was defeated in late ´81," he started cautiously, "but he came back two years ago. We were ambushed, but escaped. They got our wands though."
"So you´re fleeing from Him?" Selene sounded fearful.
"We are, but as we can´t use magic, he doesn´t know where we went. We´ll leave as soon as Jim is a bit better, if you´ll keep us that long. If not I only ask you for some medicine. We have no intention of putting you in danger or frightening you."
"Are you sure he can´t find you?" Selene laddled more soup into Snape´s bowl.
The potions master gave an affirmative nod, then leaned over to check on Potter. The moaning and tossing had become less over the last quarter hour. He touched the boy´s forehead gently. "It seems the fever´s going down," he said.
"When he wakes up, you can try to give him some soup," said the woman. "When did he eat last?"
"Two days ago. I couldn´t leave him to get something when he had fever."
-x-
Selene returned from the supermarket with a bag of herbal teas late that afternoon.
Snape shooed her out of the kitchen and went over the ingredients he had. There were some fresh vegetables, carrots and parsley and potatoes. The potions master could have kicked himself when the squib told him about the patches behind the barn. They´d have had plenty of fresh food, had he only cared to walk around their makeshift quarters in a full circle once. It had been the vegetables, why Selene had found them. She ran into them on her way to tend to her carrots.
There were also some herbs. Camomile and mint from teabags and marjolaine, cloves and others, which had been sold as spices.
The potions master tried to think of a mixture that´d help the boy, could be prepared without magic and for which he had all ingredients. Grudgingly, he set for a draught, which was usually prepared with five-year-olds. Actually the recipe was to be found in "The Junior Potions Master – Brewing With Pre-Schoolers" by Lenus Jolly. Snape didn´t like his alias very much, but Dumbledore was right. Nobody, who had attended Hogwarts in the last sixteen years would buy a children´s book by Severus Snape. Besides it wouldn´t be good for his reputation among deatheaters. With a pang of guilt Snape remembered that this one had been entirely ruined during the last week. Now he was completely useless as a spy.
"What is this?" Selene asked curiously, when he returned to the living room with a cup for the boy. "It smells good."
"A very mild healing draught," explained the potions master as he helped Potter sit up. The boy drank obediently when Snape held the cup to his lips. He didn´t even smell the brew before he drank. Snape, the spy, thought he´d have to talk to the boy about trust in the near future. It wouldn´t do to have The-Boy-Who-Lived poisoned.
-x-
After two relatively comfortable days in Selene´s living room, they left. Potter´s leg wasn´t entirely healed, but it was no longer inflamed and the boy was able to walk and transform. Snape had a packet of muggle tablets and a bottle of his ´draught´ in his pocket along with a small bag which he hoped to be able to carry in cat form.
Selene was glad of their departure. Although the woman had tried hard to hide her fear, it was clear that she felt anxious about hiding them from the person, who had killed her whole family.
Potter thanked her effusively, even hugged her, at their departure.
"This was a very nice woman," the boy said as they walked through the village, an activity the potions master´d rather have avoided, but it couldn´t be helped. It was better Selene didn´t know about their animagus forms.
"Indeed," Snape agreed.
"It was nice to be properly fed."
"Yes."
"Thank you for treating my leg."
"Mmh."
"You did a good job. It nearly doesn´t hurt at all."
"Mmh."
"So, I guess, you saved my life again."
"Potter," Snape sighed.
The boy cleared his throat and looked at Snape with a raised eyebrow.
The potions master sighed again. "Jim," he corrected his slip of tongue, "drop it. You´d have done the same for me."
The boy grinned cheekily. "If you really think I´d be able to whip up a healing draught in a muggle kitchen, you should talk to my potions teacher."
Snape couldn´t help a grin. "Jim, in your case, it doesn´t make any difference if you´re in a muggle kitchen or a dungeon lab when it comes to brewing."
The boy fake pouted. "You´re lucky that I´m so grateful or I wouldn´t have you talk about me like that."
"I´d like to see you stop me."
When they had passed the last houses, they transformed and hiked farther north in their cat form.