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.
oo0oo
Chapter 10 – Planning A Revival
The explosion of magic was horrendous, tossing the healer and the Man-Who-Conquered away from the still figure on the bed. Even the patient was affected, the body convulsing and straightening to rise a foot off the bed before flopping bonelessly back onto the mattress. Tobias Thornfeld was lucky; he landed on a pile of his colleagues, which cushioned his fall. Potter was not so lucky, slapping back first into the wall and sliding down like a classic cartoon character to lie in a still puddle of robes on the floor.
Scrambling to his feet, Medi-wizard Thornfeld hurried over to his patient on the bed and sighed in relief upon finding him limp instead of tightly curled, even though completely unconscious as before. Thornfeld's Acclaro spell showed a deep hum of magic still, but without the jagged hills and hollows that spoke of disturbed biorhythms and distorted core magic. The man was not out of the woods yet but at least now there was a possible chance at recovery.
An exclamation from his right made Thornfeld look up as Healer Toppham who had rushed in to check over Harry Potter, now called for assistance. Seems Potter had sustained a cracked clavicle and skull from his impact with the wall. Spencer from Orthopaedics being out of action, also due to his collision with a wall, meant that Thornfeld's second-in-command, Medi-wizard Loringham, had to be called in to see to Potter's healing. Miss Weasley held a quick consultation with Lord Malfoy before she would allow the assistant healers to conjure a stretcher and move the new patient to the orthopaedics ward where Skele-Gro and splinting spells could be properly administered.
"Well? How is my Uncle progressing?" Lord Malfoy demanded only seconds later, his imperious tones as sharp as cut glass.
"Hard to say, my Lord; 'better' would be the most I would venture at this point, which is not much considering how badly he was doing a few moments ago. Let us say, he is now… not dying immediately."
Draco sneered, not at all impressed with the prognosis. "And how was he so injured in the first place? He was not as badly off when he first came under your care."
"I… would rather not say at this time, Lord Malfoy, if you don't mind. There will be an inquiry and I do assure you Veritaserum will be used. We are Medi-wizards after all, and take very binding and most potent oaths to only help, never injure, with our skills. If Lonkreith has warped his oaths, then I do assure you the magic will retaliate most messily and will claim a price… a huge one."
"And will that be soon enough to undo the damage he has done to my Godfather?"
Tobias Thornfeld opened his mouth to provide a glib answer, then abruptly closed it and sighed deeply. "No. There is no excuse or restitution for what was done here today, or anything Lonkreith has done previously; only my promise that I will personally oversee Professor Snape's treatment, and do the nursing myself."
Movement at the door revealed an enormous wizard marching in with all the unstop-ability of a troll on the move. Malfoy turned and a corner of his mouth quirked up slightly. "Vinnie," he acknowledged to the newcomer.
"Draco. I got first watch. Want me to clear the room?" the man-mountain asked in a low, rumbling voice.
"Guard Professor Snape and let no-one but this man and those of our own enter, understood?"
Crabbe bowed sharply, then crossed his arms while standing in the doorway, which he filled to capacity. Draco smiled mischievously, making Thornfeld blink at the expression. "Vinnie is doing his thick-as-a-brick muscleman act as usual. Be warned! Vinnie is not as stupid as he makes everyone believe, I do assure you. But, he is as big and as strong as he looks and will destroy anyone just because entry into the room has been made without permission."
"What about service personnel, or the kitchen staff?" Thornfeld asked worriedly.
Malfoy smirked. "'None shall pass.' With Crabbe here, that's not merely a light fancy, but a rock bottom fact. There will be a roster of guards on Professor Snape from now on, to make sure no further… incidents… occur."
Thornfeld bowed his head in both acknowledgement and defeat.
oo0oo
Harry woke to darkness…
Panic set in for a moment then reality flooded in on a tide of memory. Oh yes, darkness! It was so much blacker for the few moments of illumination he had gained from Snape; a gift, a priceless gift, but a torture most vile. Potter almost sobbed but throttled it down ruthlessly when his keen ears recognised the snuffle and gasp of someone else in the room also waking. The half-snore, half-snort was as familiar as his own breathing. Potter scrubbed his face self-consciously as Ron finally managed to awaken with a noisy yawn.
"Mornin', Harry, and welcome to another fucking wonderful day at St Mungo's 'health spa for war veterans and other miscellaneous inmates'!" the redhead muttered in a sleep-gravelled voice.
Harry wondered at the bitter sarcasm in his usually cheerful friend's voice, then remembered he wasn't the only one whose life had been irrevocably changed on that blasted battle field. Ron was also suffering 'war wounds'; such a sanitised euphemism for the maiming and destruction of lives and souls.
"Glad you didn't say 'good' there," Harry returned in like tones, scrubbing at his scalp and sighing deeply. "Where are we? What's it like, and what are the chances of fleeing with our lives?"
"Loan me your shoulder and I'll loan you my eyes. Then we'll have a fair chance of getting caught about three steps from the bed."
Harry laughed, Ron joining in with the sour sound of reality knocking. All of the glass in the windows suddenly exploded and the waterglass fell into powder on the nightstand making Harry jump and Ron squeak in fright before he laughed even louder. "Merlin, Harry! Overkill, much," he applauded as Medi-wizards and healers rushed into the room with wands drawn.
"Mr Potter! What have you done! Oh my goodness, you naughty boy! You've gone and broken all of the windows again!"
"Oh God, not you again!" Harry exclaimed in disgust, turning to face the voice's origin, wandlessly cast a Banishing charm.
Ron roared with genuine laughter as the woman flew backwards and scythed through her cohorts, knocking them down as effectively as Ginny did when she was degnoming the garden. "Nice one, Harry! Five for the price of one! Wish I had my wand to give you a hand but I had to leave it behind when using these crutches."
"Should have made a pocket in your pyjamas for it; only takes a quick spell. Ask Hermione. I did," Harry muttered out the side of his mouth as the Medi-wizards ultimately prevailed and the two patients were swamped with cloying concern and tender ministrations.
"How did you break your skull this time? I thought it was too thick," Ron remarked, watching as they did scans and spells on his best friend.
"Snape… and shut up before you start. Severus is really badly damaged, Ministry swears it was not them yet he ended up in here. He was mind blasted while subject to their ever so efficient management. While under the tender care of the hospital, one of their medical miracles decided torturing a Death Eater would be poetic justice. Pity he picked on one of the most staunch Light supporters I have 'cus now they have the whole of the DA on guard as well as Slytherins of all ages. Woe betide any idiot who tries to interfere with the Professor this time." Harry's grin was vicious.
Ron snorted. "Bet Draco's pissed and that means Hermione will be on their case, poor buggers. Still, better them than us, eh?"
Both young men sniggered knowingly. Hermione with a cause was as bad as a dog with a bone. If they gave her someone to protect, a nesting Hungarian Horntail was a pushover in comparison.
oo0oo
Tobias Thornfeld was reading. Every book he could locate on the art of mind healing was piled around him; the library at St Mungo was stripped bare of texts. Unfortunately, the piles were not very large, rather skimpy, if truth be told. The number of duplicated copies made the actual useful material only about half of what he had located. It was slightly galling to find that the great experts in the field literally quoted each other's texts, papers and ideas; very little original thinking having gone into the field since 1949 when Elijah Mortempius Black had treated victims from Grindelwald's rampage. Tobias had even resorted to looking through Muggle literature, but that wasn't much help, either.
Just identifying what was happening to Severus Snape was one of the hardest things Thornfeld had ever tried to do. The man was not schizophrenic, nor was he suffering Multiple Personality Disorder even though clearly there were two or three people inside his head. The best Thornfeld could come up with was a Dissociative Disorder of a different stamp to the common Muggle or Magical kind which usually resulted from magic taking on a separate identity to the person whose core generated it.
Snape had a mental image for his physical being and also for his intellectual being. The personalities were caused by trauma, of that Thornfeld was very certain - the man had been a spy for such a long time - but which trauma had originated the various aspects he exhibited was still a mystery. Usually childhood traumas were responsible for the splits but the internal aspects were of the same physical and mental age as the current Professor Snape, instead of younger. Even more disturbing, Headmaster Dumbledore had mentioned that Professor Snape even had an identity called 'Ibrim' that was his inner person, his soul or his magic. Tobias wasn't entirely sure which was embodied in the Ibrim identity but Headmaster Dumbledore had assured him the triviume had lived happily together for more years than he had known his Potions Master. It was all very confusing but one thing was eminently clear: these manifestations of the person had to be unified or it was just... not healthy. Shuddering at the implications, Thornfeld dreaded that the three aspects would explode outward in an uncontrolled magical discharge that could rip anything in its path apart, buildings and people included.
Decision made, Healer Thornfeld chose the magical reunification process to 'put Humpty back together again' as his colleague in Mental Magics had so crudely termed it. The Integratus spell gave the best chance of forging the three aspects of Snape's personality into a single unit but it was not always successful. Even when it did work, there was no guarantee which aspect of the person would be the dominant when the new entity was finally settled into place. Still, the man was in a coma. If Snape was to have any chance of waking up at all, this was the best course of action Thornfeld and his colleagues could come up with.
oo0oo
The Putney Arms was one of those semi-Muggle places where wizards went to get away from their troubles. If only for a little while. Medi-wizards used the booths to hold private conversations well away from the dangerously-disturbed atmosphere of St Mungo's. Tobias Thornfeld had reserved one of them for his discussion of the Snape case with Pollex Morecombe and Harold Spencer. Both men were top of their fields and rather more powerful than the average run of wizards. If they all combined their power in the ritual, it was sure to have enough impact to make it work.
"I agree that it could work... probably... but is it really necessary? I have seen no evidence in the patient of instability or magical splitting, yet," Morecombe muttered as he blew the froth off a pint of brown ale before taking a hefty swig.
"I was inside his mind with the Man-Who-Conquered. We met two of his alters, Snape and Severus. They were definitely completely separate entities, discrete and functioning with control of the different parts of the man's body, rather than his mind. Snape was the intellect and Severus was the body, thoroughly comatose, as was his body. Albus Dumbledore told me at the initial meeting that Professor Snape also had a persona for his… soul - for want of a better word – a persona that had been present since he was a child. In fact these splits had occurred in childhood and had only been reinforced with the life Snape had been forced to live due to spying for the Light…"
"And didn't that come as a shock to the general populace?" Morecombe muttered with a sly grin. All three studied the table and remembered the end of the war, the joy that warred with the horror of their times and the injuries they each had to deal with.
Harold Spencer stirred his bulk and blinked deliberately. "Makes sense though, I suppose. I always thought Snape had more balls than good sense, especially when facing off against the Marauders, bloody bullying prats those three, really living up to their chosen name. Mind you, Snape was a nasty piece of gear, too, which was probably why people believed he would easily succumb to the Dark. Very Slytherin through and through! And all that."
"After my time," Tobias dismissed impatiently, wanting to get on with it. "So, are we agreed that a Reunification Ritual should be performed on Professor Snape tomorrow, to reintegrate his three personas? Good! I personally think the Integratus Spell in three parts should be used with the Ritual of Unification. What do you think?"
Pollex Morecombe nodded slowly. "Best do it in the Spell Damage Unit; we have the wards there to cope with run-away magic if anything goes wrong. What time should we start and what parts shall we each take?"
They discussed the ritual in detail far into the night, through quite a number of ales followed by dinner, then firewhiskey. By the end of the evening, Morecombe had to floo rather than Apparate and Thornfeld walked home although Spencer with his far greater bulk seemed unaffected by their deliberations.
"Be on time you chaps," Thornfeld admonished as he carefully navigated the street. Getting hammered the night before such a powerful Ritual was probably not a good idea but... too late now, he decided as he prepared to apparate. The other two simply grunted as they went their separate ways.
oo0oo