Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns the characters but I have made them dance this time. No money made, no gratuities accepted except the reviews of my peers, for which I thank you.

I always answer my reviewers if they leave a name and I am always happy to chat with them over PM. Huge thanks and a great deal of gratitude as you are the reason I managed to get out of the mud and get going again.

If you have a flame to send, I suggest you do a spell check, the last couple look like they were written by a drunken kindergartener.

Another huge thanks to my BeST betas Zarathustra46 and the Wicked Bunjhny who make this lot legible and grammatically sane.

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Chapter 09 – Cracking The Nut

Chaos ruled! Alarms shrieked, magical warnings flashed, and personnel ran toward the closed ward as tell-tales pointed the way. Someone was about to explode in a magical storm of uncontrolled wild power. Since there were few wizards in the closed ward and of those there, only one was powerful enough to set off so many markers, Medi-wizard Thornfeld hitched up his robes and sprinted.

Shockingly, the doorway to Professor Snape's room hummed and glittered with power, the barrier impervious to spells or physical force. Indeed, two hefty orderlies who had tried had obviously bounced off the far wall, if the dents were anything to judge by. Dimly, by screwing up his eyes, Thornfeld realised there was a second person in the room, spreadeagled in mid-air and screaming in terror as he slowly revolved above the bed.

"What happened?" Thornfeld demanded, pushing people back so he could have a closer look.

"I don't know, Sir! Mike Lonkreith was on duty. He must have been in there for about half an hour, then the whole place went mad, charms and wards springing up everywhere," Anabetha Bones replied concisely. "We tried to get in, tried to break in, but each time we were repulsed and… and then Mike started screaming. Sir, I-I think he is being torn apart in there," the woman confided in horror.

"What makes you think that, my dear?" Medi-wizard Thornfeld asked, then ducked as screams and gagging sounds came from all around him.

A missile had come through the warding on the door, showering the audience huddled outside the door with blood as the missile hit the far wall then drop to lay in the corridor accusingly.

"Holy Fuck! Its Mike's arm!" an anonymous voice yelped, then the smell of vomit triggered someone else into retching.

"We have to get in there before Mike is torn to bits! Can we send for the Aurors or…"

"Move back," an aristocratic voice said harshly, as four people breasted the tide of humanity, pushing them all aside. Waves of whispers broke out as Lord Malfoy, Lady Malfoy, Harry Potter, and Ginny Weasley suddenly arrived, dominating the crowd and silencing comments without effort. "Healer Thornfeld, what is going on here?"

"We don't know, my Lord. We really don't know and we can't get in…"

"Looks like someone annoyed Professor Snape a bit too much," Ginny said flatly, stirring the mangled arm with the toe of her shoe. She murmured something to The-Man-Who-Triumphed, who promptly slapped a hand over his mouth but those closest thought it was to stop a laugh escaping.

"Want to take a crack at it, Draco?" Harry Potter asked conversationally, only a slight wobble in his voice.

Malfoy grunted and held up a hand, pressing it toward the sparkling screen. He yelped when a fat spark threw his hand away, his wife steadying his balance. "I'm afraid Uncle Severus' magic is beyond angry, right up into murderous. I can't put enough force into my signature to even crack through his fury, never mind be recognised."

"Here, let's see if I can give you a power boost," Harry replied, offering his hand.

Malfoy wrapped his fingers between Potter's sturdy brown ones and together they pressed against the barrier, Harry feeding power into Draco's aura until it impinged on the furious wizard wrapped in the warding shields. Something deep in Snape's psyche finally registered the presence of his Godson and the furious magical activity ceased. The badly damaged body of the medical orderly crashed to the floor with a soggy thump as the wards and weavings collapsed, and the wild magic whipping past the entering wizards re-absorbed into the still figure on the bed.

Tobias Thornfeld hurried forward to check the body on the floor, letting out a sigh of relief as he found a pulse. Signalling two orderlies forward to bring in a stretcher, he had Mike Lonkreith quickly whisked away to have his arm reattached as soon as possible. Thornfield was about to follow the stretcher when he was arrested by a furious snarl near the bedside.

"What is the meaning of this? Who brought Graybarge's Ripping Hooks into a respectable hospital? They are torture instruments of the Blackest Magical kind! There is blood all over the sheets! And pieces of meat missing from Severus' arms. Why is my Godfather's shoulder dislocated? And why are all his fingers broken? Is there a reason there is a needle stuck in his eye?"

"What?" The exclamation came from a number of throats as the Medi-wizards tried to get closer to the patient. Thornfeld pushed the lesser lights away as he bent to examine the patient, an exclamation of disgust breaking out.

"Please, clear the room now!" he commanded, the medical personnel moving away reluctantly while the four civilians stayed put. "Please, I need to do some repair work immediately."

"Then do so, but we are not leaving Uncle Severus alone and unguarded. It is obvious that he is not safe here under your so-called care!" Hermione hissed. "I would suggest you get on with it while I make a few Floo calls. No, Draco, you stay here in case Professor Snape wakens, I'll rouse the troops!" Spinning with a flounce, hair bouncing wildly, Hermione marched off to make a few calls and arrange for guards to look after the professor around the clock from henceforth. She was sure most of Snape's Slytherins would come to her call, as well as the Order and quite a few Aurors.

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It should have been relatively easy to fix a few broken bones; realign the fragments, pour in the Skele-gro and voila! But it wasn't. Every time Thornfeld approached the curled figure, the wards flared and the shielding spells repelled everything from a simple Acclaro to a bone realigning spell. Morecombe from Magical Accidents and Harold Spencer from Orthopaedics both came to consult and were also repulsed, Spencer so dramatically that he ended up in his own ward being treated by his own team. Morecombe fared a little better, being more used to ducking the unexpected magical discharges that his patients intermittently gave off.

"Snape is extremely powerful and quite frankly, the only way you will be able to reach him is to knock him out. To do that, you first have to reach him. Sucks to be you," Pollex Morecombe added mischievously, before ducking out of the ward.

"If that man wasn't so good at his job…" Thornfeld broke off his tirade as the four people remaining in the room refocussed their attention on him. "I wonder if it would do any good to have one of you break through his defences."

"I suppose I could do it, but he might resent my intrusion," Harry said dubiously.

"We simply have to get in to get any sense out of him, so I fear we must take that chance," Tobias Thornfeld replied still trying to penetrate the shielding. Thornfield knew exactly when The-Boy-Who-Lived grasped Snape's shoulder, the flood of power intoxicating as it bent around the healer adding itself to his spell. It was amazing how adaptable Harry Potter's magic was, not forcing but strengthening as if it was made just to fit to his. Any wizard who was this good at sharing had to be a very good person indeed; else a fool.

They broke through the barrier, not into a wasteland as Thornfeld had expected but a landscape rich in detail and content, the ripe smell of growing things assaulting their nostrils as they followed a path worn into the grass. The path led to a perfectly cultivated garden surrounded by mature trees and framing a small but neat cottage in the background. A hammock slung between two of the trees held the curled black figure they had expected to find. However, a second, black-clad figure, exactly the same but upright and obviously armed, stood amidst the garden's bounty, and glared at them.

"Professor Snape?" Medi-Wizard Thornfeld asked tentatively.

"Who the Devil are you and what are you doing in my garden?" the professor snarled, wand never wavering from their heads.

"It's me, Harry Potter, Sir, we had to get through your shielding to treat you," Harry offered quietly, making sure the man in black could see him properly. Potter's sight had not returned even here in Snape's head but Potter could work out where he was by the direction Snape's voice came from.

"Who?"

That was a surprise!

Potter spluttered and stammered an explanation, until Healer Thornfeld decided to take the initiative. "Professor Snape, you realise this is your mind and you are trapped inside it?" he stated, more than asked, deciding to take a more aggressive stance in the explanation.

"Don't be ridiculous!" Snape turned away dismissively and began to nip heads off the Snapdragons, carefully putting them into his basket. One or two tried to bite him and one even set his glove on fire, but he barely stopped his activities to put the spark out.

Tobias Thornfeld shook his head in amazement and strode over to the curled figure on the hammock, bending to take his pulse and cast Acclaro over him to ascertain the damage. Snape roared almost as loudly as his patch of Snapdragons as he raced toward the healer. As he brushed past Harry, the young man managed to latch onto one flailing arm and dug in his heels to stop the professor's headlong rush.

"No, he's a healer, let him help you!" Harry yelled even as Snape demanded he let go immediately, the two standing toe to toe in the middle of a fine crop of bleeding hearts.

Snape began to put up a real fight and Harry threw his arms around the man's waist, lifting him off his feet and body slamming him to the ground. It was wrestling move Terry Boot had shown them many years back and it worked well, even though landing on Snape was like landing on a bag of baseball bats which all fought back. Harry caught an elbow in the eye and a forehead to the nose; Snape cursing and swearing like there was no tomorrow. For a second the younger man saw stars and wondered where his professor had learned to fight so dirty, especially when he caught a knee in the thigh and just knew Snape was trying for a little to the left.

"Bugger this!" Potter exclaimed and punched his ex-professor in the head, actually trying to fight back rather than just smother his efforts to escape.

Wizards did not fight physically very often but this was truly liberating, Snape decided, bucking the smaller man off and blocking his punch while sending his own bony knuckles forward with good intent to smear the nearest cheek. Very liberating but… painful! Snape grunted when he caught a right in the belly and for a moment failed to breathe. Snape wasn't sure how long they tussled in the dirt until both finally flopped back exhausted, covered in their own blood and that from the Bleeding Hearts they had ruined. Still, the sacrifice had been worth it.

"Are… you ready… to listen to… reason, now…" Harry panted, leaning up on one elbow and blinking hard as something dripped into his eyes, probably blood, he thought with a grimace; who would have thought Snape had such a good left cross?

"What reason?" the supercilious tone lost none of its knifelike sarcasm even through pained panting.

"Look, if you could perform Legilimency on me, it would be quicker but I don't know if you can. My eyes got damaged by the Elemental that split the fragment of Riddle out of my soul," Potter added with a matter-of-fact calm that he had worked terrifically hard to perfect.

"Did it now? Interesting. You probably offered it anything it wanted in return for its help, now didn't you? Foolish boy! You're lucky it only took your sight and not your life. Probably took the spare soul fragment too, if truth be told. Greedy things, Elementals, nearly as bad as their cousins the Daemons," Snape told him, licking his knuckles where they bled quite freely. "So, you are willing to let a complete stranger into your head just to prove a point?"

"But you aren't a complete stranger," Harry told him softly. "I have been your student in Potions for seven years, your student in Occlumency and Legilimency for one year and your comrade in arms for two years. We fought against Riddle as part of the Light and we won - at a terrible cost - but we still won in the long run. You were injured and so was I. I am getting better but there was an accident and you were taken to Azkaban, although nobody knows how or why. We thought the Dementors got you but no, you survived all that right up until someone tried to kill your mind but it looks like you have lucked out on that too. You know, Sir, you are either the luckiest bastard in the world or the most unlucky. Sometimes it's hard to tell, isn't it?"

Snape barked a bitter laugh. "Yes, sometimes it is very hard to tell. So, if I take your word as gospel, I am existing in my own mind and so are both you and yon healer. Therefore, if I perform Legilimency on you, then I will cause a feed-back loop and blast us all out of here, is that correct?"

Harry's mouth fell open. "Would it? Wow! See why we need you awake and whole? You're good at this stuff."

"Flattery will get you… a little way," Snape added unexpectedly, surprising a laugh out of Harry as he felt a firm hand grab his and haul him to his feet. "Very well, there is a way but I am going to have to enter your mind and use your own strength and power to pull you into my mind to use my knowledge to complete the spell. It's not easy but it is possible, if you are willing to cooperate fully."

"Anything," Harry agreed and bit his lip when Snape made a rude noise, muttering something about one being born every minute. He heard the beginning of the spell then almost cried out in terror as light flooded into his brain and he saw a bruised and bloody face before him, black hair a wild tangle, grey, featureless eyeballs staring into nothing. It was then supplanted by a long, bony, equally bloody face topped by lank hair and jet black eyes that burned with the intense light of concentration. Other things flashed through Harry's mind, glimpses of memories and fragments of feeling as something or someone rummaged through his memory. Before he could protest, the feeling was gone and the light became even brighter as another spell was spoken.

For a long instant, Harry was Severus Ibrim Snape, knew every thought and feeling in the mind before him, then it all exploded in a blast of mixed sound, colour, light, taste, and feeling. It was all too much and his mind shut down into blackness in seconds.

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