Chapter 42:
After the torture:
Sirius cursed under his breath. This was just bloody perfect. How pray tell, would they be able to heal Snape in his condition without the use of magic? The Animagus shrunk the parchment and packed it into his trouser pocket, then searched the pockets of his coat, which he had put over his arm and retrieved a shrunken hand mirror from one of the numerous bags and hiding places in the piece of clothing. If he indeed had to carry Snape, then he wanted at least to keep any direct skin-contact as small as possible. Afterwards, he could certainly throw away his coat – he'd never be able to get the stench and dirt out of the fabric – yet, it by far exceeded the alternative to carry Snape with his bare hands. He glanced briefly at the mirror and then stuffed it likewise into his trouser pocket. Not one minute longer than necessary did he want to stay here, and he could still contact Dumbledore once they were out of the quarry and its horrors.
He covered the unmoving potions master with the robe and spread it, and then he carefully reached for the arm closer to him, supporting Snape's shoulders with his other hand. Then he pulled the other man carefully over to him. As soon as Snape threatened to slip from the heap of corpses, however, he wrapped the material as well as possible around him, propped him into a sitting position and, with a slight crouch, heaved the dead weight of the potions master over his shoulder. He straightened and took a tentative step to adjust to the new weight, which threw his balance slightly off. Still, he was startled. He would actually have expected that a man of Snape's size would be heavier, but the Slytherin had always rather been on the lean side and the time he spent here hadn't helped that.
Snape groaned again, as his body was jerkily moved, but he didn't stir.
"You better not die on me now, Snape. You still owe me a new robe," Sirius growled, even if he didn't manage to bring any sharpness into his voice. He was still too overwhelmed by Voldemort's cruelty, which he had just witnessed here. This bastard didn't even stop at tormenting children. Sirius only hoped that Harry never again got caught in the clutches of this monster.
At least James and Lily had not been tortured before they died, he thought with a last regretting glance at the dead child. He could only hope for Snape that he had been unconscious already before he had been brought here and that he had not been aware of this place.
He left the room together with his load, carefully closing the door behind himself.
Harry already expected him anxiously at the top of the stairs and when he spotted the body, wrapped in a black outer robe, over his godfather's shoulder, his expression changed into a regretting frown.
"He's not dead, Harry," Sirius appeased, and the boy immediately relaxed.
"How is he?"
"Not well. Come, let's go outside and contact Dumbledore. Then you'll get to know everything."
Harry merely nodded and followed him, letting his eyes move frequently over to the unconscious professor, while Sirius marched back through the corridor with long strides.
Once outside, Sirius carefully let Snape slide to the ground and positioned him onto his back. He heard a surprised gasp from above when Harry saw the face of the man for the first time. Sirius also frowned in displeasure.
In the open daylight, Snape looked even worse; as if he were just as much a corpse as those other unfortunate people down there. His eyes lay deep in their sockets and lay in shadows; together with the waxen skin and the dark shadow of first signs of a beard, Snape's face looked like dead.
Indeed, Poppy would have to do hard work to earn her money this month.
"Are you certain that he's still alive? He's so still," Harry said doubtfully.
Sirius was not entirely successful to suppress a smirk. "No sarcasm and insulting comments, as soon you look at him the wrong way is indeed unusual, eh? No, he is well alive for now but I'll still be glad when I can hand him over into Poppy's care."
He fished the hand mirror from his pocket and turned it back to its normal size.
"Albus," he commanded softly into the glass of the mirror. Harry stepped close to him and saw how the expecting face of the old wizard instantly appeared on the shiny surface.
"Harry, are you alright?" he addressed the boy immediately.
"He's fine, Albus," Sirius answered the question with a reproachful glance at Harry. "The quarry was indeed deserted."
Dumbledore's eyes shadowed over at once. "And Severus? Sirius, have you found Severus?"
Sirius nodded sternly. Now, the hard part of his report would begin. "Yes. I did. Voldemort has left him back, together with some other prisoners he killed."
Dumbledore's eyes saddened when he took his conclusions.
"No, Albus," Sirius assured hastily. "He is alive but very bad off. He doesn't look good at all. He's been terribly mishandled, and on top of that, Voldemort has magically overloaded him. We can't use any magic on him without killing him ourselves."
Dumbledore seemed relieved, yet still worried and a deep thoughtful crease had appeared between his brows. "Do you know what curse has been used on him?"
"No, only that it has magically overloaded him. We can transport him once, but in a building with magical wards he'd be further endangered. I can't bring him into the headquarters, Albus and neither to Hogwarts."
Dumbledore thought about it for a moment, before looking up again. "Sirius, how is Severus? I mean, is he in immediate danger?"
Sirius again looked at the man lying on the ground. Dumbledore knew that he had experience with people in bad condition, having witnessed more than enough in Azkaban, so that he could be trusted to assess the situation best possible for a non-trained medic. "Honestly, I don't know. He looks bad. He is probably suffering from acute dehydration and malnutrition. He has some clearly visible wounds, however, as far as I can judge, they were meant for mere torture purposes, not to kill him. They apparently wanted to keep him alive for as long as possible. But I could very well be mistaken and he could have internal injuries. I did not see much of the outside wounds, because he's so dirty, but he is unconscious and very weak."
Again Dumbledore seemed to process the information, before he spoke on. "Bring him to Remus' cabin, Sirius. Only little magic roams the house. Then try to get a better picture of Severus' condition. Poppy and I will come there as well, right after the meeting. Should his condition suddenly worsen, then send the emergency signal and Poppy will come immediately."
Sirius did not like that at all. He wanted to get rid of Snape as fast as possible and not keep on babysitting him. But the fact that Dumbledore would put up with the Aurors, if ever Poppy should suddenly storm off and disappear without any explanation and the finality in the old wizard's voice held back his protest. Dumbledore's eyes told him that he would do everything so that Snape survived and Sirius had enough respect for the man to accept that and put his personal feelings aside, so he nodded mutely.
"All right, but please hurry up, okay?"
"I am aware that you both don't like one another, Sirius. But please, for once, put your dislike in the background and do what you can for him."
"Certainly, headmaster," sighed Sirius.
The portkey, hexed by Sirius to their new destination, transported them into a clearing, in the middle of which a rather small, two stories high cottage stood. Sirius didn't hesitate for long and only briefly made sure that the injured man, whom he was now carrying on his arms, had survived the journey. Snape's condition seemed unchanged, however, and Sirius nodded encouragingly to Harry before he went toward the house. The boy hurried alongside him, jumped the tree stair steps to the veranda up before him, opened the locked door with an 'Alohomora' and held it open for him.
Sirius smiled gratefully at him and directed his steps straight towards the bathroom. They had to get the dirt off Snape first, to get a closer look at his wounds.
They entered the tile-covered room with the old-fashionable armatures, shower and the metallic bathtub on clawed feet.
Sirius eyed the shower for one moment. It would be the simplest thing to just wash the grime off of Snape, but to do that with the high fastened showerhead, would result in a total mess, and they all would end up soaking wet. Besides, there was the fact that Snape could not possibly keep himself upright.
Then he looked over to the bathtub and felt the blood shoot to his cheeks in disgust and degradation. Damn it, the day Sirius Black would bathe Severus Snape would never come.
With a cleaning charm, it would be a matter of a minute to get him clean, but this way...
Damn, damn, damn...
"And what are we gonna do now?" Harry's voice pulled him out of his desperate search for a less humiliating solution.
He gazed over at his godson, who looked only all too willing to help. Again he swore internally, before answering Harry. "Let the water run warm in the tub for now, but don't shut the drain yet. We have to get rid of the dirt first."
Harry immediately got to work, and Sirius lowered Snape to the ground again. He really did not need all of this, but what choice did he have, if he ever wanted to look Dumbledore in the eyes again?
Sirius unwrapped the body from the coat and threw the fabric carelessly to the side. He moved to reach for the fling of Snape's trousers, but then he hesitated. This was taking the matters way too far. He rose and went to a cabinet under the mirror, where he found a pair of scissors, which Remus had always laying around there. It was good that he was well versed in the house; it saved him a lot of time looking for things.
He went back to Snape and kneeled down beside the man. Then, ignoring the burns on the calves and the fire holes in the trousers as well as possible, he began to cut the fabric open.
As soon as it had cut open the totally soiled trousers and had removed them from Snape's skin, he rolled up his sleeves and, suppressing his disgust, lifted the body again into his arms. The dried blood on Snape didn't really disturb him, but the slimy substance that covered his body and mostly his back bothered him much more, especially since Sirius had seen from where that stuff came.
He let the still unconscious wizard slide into the tub, supporting his shoulders so he didn't immediately sagged in on himself. Doing that, he saw the deep slits, which ran in a zigzag over the potions master's back. He sighed deeply. They really hadn't shown the man much mercy, yet these wounds were not directly lethal and could wait. Thus, he carefully lowered the unconscious man backwards against the wall of the bathtub, letting his head loll against the edge of the tub
Sirius just wanted to ask Harry to take hold the showerhead, but his godson studied the toes of his shoes with obvious nervousness, doing clearly his best not to look at Snape.
"What's wrong, Harry? Do the wounds disturb you?"
Harry simply shook his head and murmured something unintelligible.
"Excuse me?" Sirius asked.
Harry sighed and looked into his eyes, his cheeks covered by a hint of red. "Professor Snape would not want me to see him in such a way," he finally said.
Sirius had not thought about that. It would probably disturb the teenager to see an adult man, particularly a teacher, and thus a person of respect and even more someone like Snape in such a private and exposed position. Even if their actions were necessary to keep him alive.
It looked as if he was not the only one who was unpleased by the situation, but Harry's reaction also showed him how absurd his thoughts were. It had to be done, simple as that.
"I do not like this any more than you do, Harry, you can believe me on that," he said. "Still. I must be able to get a better look at his injuries and for that, we first have to get rid of the dirt." he paused briefly and then added with a smile and a wink, "But if you swear not to tell Snape later, I won't either."
This even drew a small smile from Harry.
"Please fetch the liquid soap from the sink. After that you can hold the showerhead."
Harry did as he had been instructed and Sirius began pedantically to wash Snape without taking his supporting hand away. The potions master lay like dead in his grasp, and Sirius had to interrupt several times to examine Snape and make sure that the man still breathed. But he seemed to be stable enough for the moment.
"Shouldn't I help?" Harry asked hesitantly after a while.
"Better not. Let me wash away the worst of the dirt at first. It's enough that one of us has to touch this here."
"Touch what?"
"I found him laying on a heap of decaying corpses. Part of the grime is some residue of them."
At that, Harry did his best to stay away from Snape's body, while his face took on a sickly greenish colour.
After several repeated scrubs with the soap and washing him off again, Sirius was so far content that he could now address Snape's hair and back, but as he looked at the hair; dishevelled and stiff with grime, blood and who knew what else, he paused. Under normal circumstances, Snape's hair was already something that he would have meticulously avoided coming into contact with, but now...
Apart from that, they may have a chance to get the stench off Snape's body, but never in life out of his half long hair.
"Alright there, Harry. Now let the tub fill up and get me the scissors from the floor." He pointed with his thumb to the general direction of the trousers' remains and Harry obeyed the request with a questioning frown.
"Hold him upright by his shoulders," Sirius instructed, when Harry returned, handing him the scissors.
"What do you want with the scissors?" asked Harry, his hesitance about having to touch his professor, obvious.
"Don't worry. Most of the grime is washed away."
Harry uncertainly reached for the shoulders of the unconscious man and Sirius supported Snape's head. With disgust, he gathered up the hair in his neck and cut it off with only one snap of the scissors.
"He won't be happy about that," commented Harry.
"I don't care," Sirius replied dryly, while he kept on cutting the hair, throwing the severed strands carelessly to the ground, until Snape's hair was merely a couple of centimetres long. "But I will not wash his long, greasy hair until it's clean. I'm not going to do that to myself."
After he was to content enough with the new, short cropped hairdo Snape's, he put the scissors away and bent the potions master's upper body forwards with the help of Harry, so that he got access to the wounds on his back in order to clean them too.
The injuries were without any doubt the result of a whip or something of the kind, and several of the cuts were already inflamed. He began to clean them carefully with a soft rag and earned himself a twitch and quiet groan from Snape, as he touched a heavily inflamed wound.
"It's all right, professor," he heard Harry's worried voice. "We're only helping you."
Sirius did not particularly worry about it. Of course, he did not try intentionally to cause Snape pain but he would not instantly slip into mother hen mode either. He did all of this only for Dumbledore's sake and Snape should not have it any better than himself.
He begun to clean a whitish substance from one of the deeper cuts and again, Snape groaned loudly in pain, even in his unconsciousness.
Harry looked over to him. "What is that stuff?"
Sirius grimaced in distaste. "If I'm not mistaken, then this is brain tissue. Snape has probably been laying on a crushed skull in the room."
Harry's eyes widened and his eyes moved over the wounds on Snape's back, now clean of the dirt and open freely to see. "What? But. That is..." Harry stuttered, while slowly, all colour fled from his face and he seemed to make himself a mental picture of his godfather's words. Then, so fast that Sirius had just enough time to catch Snape's body, Harry jumped up and ran to the toilet, where he threw up violently.
Sirius sighed heavily. "Harry, are you all right?"
Sirius felt compelled to go to his godson's side and help him, but if he let go of Snape, then the injured man would slip under the water. Sirius had expected that Harry would reach his boarder to process this all at a point, but he would not lie to the boy. The whole thing was brutal, but Harry was old enough to learn how brutal Voldemort really was.
After some time, the retching stopped and the toilet was flushed. "I'm alright," croaked Harry, still remaining squatted before the toilet. "I have only just imagined... And then this stench..."
Sirius nodded in understanding, although the boy did not look at him. Even if they didn't smell anything for now, and wouldn't do so until he lifted the hex, it would probably take weeks, until one of them could get rid of the stench's echo.
"Let us finish with his hair and his back, then we can bring him into one to the guest beds and wait for the headmaster and for Poppy," he encouraged and Harry nodded, stood up and walked back to the bathtub once again.
T.B.C.
A/N
You didn't think that I'll really kill off Snape? The only 'casualty' we met in this chapter was Snape's hair, which is bad enough. There will be some real deaths later in this fic though. Among them someone who is very dear to my heart.
Lately I've been thinking a lot about the future fate of canon Snape. There are some things JKR said, which I think are quite worrisome. I may be wrong, but there are things like "Don't feel too sorry for Snape," "I was worried about how many of the moderators see themselves in Slytherin," (Does she now consider Slytherin to be a 'bad' house. I thought that she wouldn't design her universe so two-dimensional. See Peter) or then the answer to the question as to why Dumbledore trusts Snape. She said "I shall merely say that Snape has given Dumbledore his story and Dumbledore believes it." She doesn't say if the story is true or not. Anyway, I somehow fear that I (Like many) got Snape completely wrong. sniff. I don't want him evil, but it would make kind of sense. I mean, JKR creates a character that most readers hate, then this character morphs into some complicated creature that earns some respect, makes us even pity him, only to make Harry's first impulse to mistrust him be correct. Would be evilly genius of her. Anyhow. I've been pondering on that yesterday in bed and I chose to write a very short snippet about something that doesn't leave me alone anymore. I will write this in the next days. Would be great if you give it a try and tell me if you think that it possible too.
Thanks to my two wonderful Betas Slytherin's silver snake and Sadistra