Chapter 57:
Healing attempts
During all his childhood, Christmas had never been a particularly nice time for Harry. Not that the Dursleys would not celebrate the holiday; quite the contrary. They used to go to great pains to make their house the most lavishly decorated, and that their Christmas tree would be the tallest and most impressive one in the entire neighbourhood. And, of course, said Christmas tree had to be placed directly in front of the living-room window, no matter whether or not one was still able to move about in the room. In fact, one could not move in said room without having to perform a slalom around the table, the huge tree and the wall unit, a feat that especially made Harry's fat cousin Dudley look like a tightrope walking hippopotamus.
Nevertheless, at his relatives', who regarded any kind of disorder as a monstrous crime, not a single garland had ever been put up without following a well-calculated plan.
In Hogwarts, things had changed for Harry. For the first time in his life he had not experienced the holiday as merely a compulsory exercise in how to impress your neighbours and standing by and having to watch how his fat cousin was swamped with presents (which always ended in a shrieking tantrum because Dudley had not got to the letter what he had wished for, in spite of having written an exact list for his mother just a week before). For the first time, Harry understood why Christmas also was called the holiday of love. The fact that he got presents for the first time was not even important to him. What was important was that he was together with friends.
At the burrow, where he originally was supposed to spend the holidays, things would have been everything but sterile, he knew that.
However, this was nothing compared to what was awaiting him at the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix. When he set foot into his godfather's old family home for the first time two days ago, Harry had stood and stared with his mouth agape. The house would have provided the perfect scenery for a Muggle gothic horror movie. The thick windowpanes in the rooms were stained and dull, and even if they had been as clean as anything the light would not have dared to enter the house, Harry was convinced of that. It was extremely gloomy, something not even the red and silver garlands and the colourful singing spheres that were put up everywhere, softly chanting Christmas Carols, could change. On the contrary; the decorations left the impression of it being as natural to the old house as a camel race on the ground of the ocean.
Every single painting in the house showed morosely looking people from times long past. At least Harry had been spared the acquaintance with the, presumably, worst of all the portraits, the one of Sirius' mother, since the picture in the entrance way was covered by thick curtains. Ron had told him of this particular portrait and how nobody had been able to remove it so far, but his brother Bill had put a very effective dimming charm on it so that Old Mrs. Black could shriek and shout as she wished without disturbing anyone. It was something that annoyed her to no end. What his friend had told him of the old hag was more than enough to thoroughly nip any curiosity about his godfather's mother in the very bud.
Nonetheless, he had learned more about Sirius and his family during the last two days than over the entire previous years. Now that he did not have to take care of Snape, his godfather was literally flourishing. He had even offered his help with decorating the house.
Since the episode with the nightmare, Harry had not seen nor heard anything of Snape. He was staying in one of the guest rooms and only Molly, Remus, and Albus used to enter it to bring him something to eat and see to his needs. Sirius' initial worries about Snape's mental condition, which had seemed to bother him considerably, had obviously evaporated. Only once, right at the beginning when Remus was about to bring Snape some food, had Sirius asked him to watch Snape closely in case Snape was in depression. Seemingly, the werewolf had made the mistake to mention Sirius' concerns to Snape. Because as he emerged, he had splashed half of the porridge over his robes and the facial expression of the usually gentle Lupin had changed into something between indignation and anger. After this incident the topic had been closed for good. Lupin had assured everybody that reacting offended and spouting poison was exactly what to expect of a mentally normal Snape.
The morning before Christmas Eve found a slightly apprehensive Harry and his best friend Ron leafing through a couple of magazines, all filled with pictures of more or less dressed women who all winked frivolously at them and smiled at the boys coquettishly with cherry-red pouts. The twins had slipped them the magazines after breakfast, accompanied by a note with the promise to help them explore the secrets of growing up. Harry could not deny that he was strangely attracted to the females in the pictures, even if he would never have admitted it. Ron seemed to feel likewise, if his deep scarlet ears were an indicator, and both of them covered their nervousness with bad jokes, causing the women in the magazine to either giggle or frown angrily.
When they heard soft steps approaching, they quickly hid the magazines under the mattress, flung themselves onto the bed and tried to look as innocent as possible.
The steps did not stop in front of their room but continued on their way down the corridor without hesitating.
After a quick and wordless exchange of glances, the boys jumped up from the bed, rushed to the door, opened it a little and peered out into the gloomy corridor. They could just catch a glimpse of Mrs. Weasley, Dumbledore, and Lupin leading a blindfolded Poppy Pomfrey by the elbow before they disappeared around a corner.
"I bet they're going to Snape," said Ron with a frown. "Why so many? And on Christmas Eve of all days…"
"Hmm," answered Harry pensively. Ron had a point. True, Pomfrey had been at headquarters before, on the day Snape had been brought here, and she had been wearing the blindfold then, too, because she was not an official member of the Order. But why did more than one Order member not accompany her? There was something going on with Snape; that much was obvious.
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Grey. Nothing but grey as far as the eye could see. The entire world seemed to have lost its colour. With sagging shoulders, Severus was sitting in his wheel chair and gazing down fixedly at the dreary street before the house through the dull windowpane. Where was the snow that was supposed to cover the surroundings at this time of year?
Gone. Like Severus' self-esteem.
A cheerless, unfriendly, wet and cold winter weather had come upon them. Severus shivered involuntarily, although it was comfortably warm in the room. He tried his best to suppress the feeling of helplessness and shame and concentrate on the more and more hotly burning flame of vengeance instead. He would be able to face Malfoy again, and either would he take revenge and reclaim his dignity or he would die fighting. Living on like this, in the knowledge of having failed once again, of having allowed Malfoy to break him, he could not. That he was dead certain of.
This, too, was the only reason for him to take some interest at all in Lupin and Molly's exercises. Several times a day they came and helped him train and strengthen his muscles. Often, it seemed to him more than futile and it took a lot of energy to do it, despite its futility. However, they would only take him with them to the final battle if he were physically fit enough. Thus he had to pull himself together and try his best.
Moreover, and although he was not really interested in getting well again, the daily visits by Albus and those two did distract him from sinking ever deeper into the bottomless grey of his soul and the bleakness of his thoughts.
Severus looked up when the door to his room opened and a handful of people entered, Poppy Pomfrey in the middle. He frowned before remembering that Molly had mentioned the day before yesterday that they would soon try to heal his hands. To his great surprise, his heart began to beat faster. If they were actually able to restore his hands, and if his legs, too, were healed in the next few days, then they would have to declare him fit enough to take part in the fight.
"Hello Severus," Albus greeted him with a radiant smile. "Ready for the great day?"
Severus did not deign to reply to the headmaster's insufferable merriment. Instead, he watched Molly walk over to him and close the greying, once yellow curtains whilst Lupin took the blindfold off the Mediwitch.
"I really do not understand why you still insist on the blindfold, Madame," said the werewolf quietly as he tried to disentangle the piece of fabric from her hair without hurting her. "You've been here so often and helped so much you're almost one of us anyway."
"I'm not one of you," the older woman replied with emphasis, and she brusquely wiped Remus' hands away before she freed herself of the blindfold. "I do support your idea and will help you with my healing skills whenever need be, but I took an oath to never intentionally hurt anybody, and that's exactly what the Order does. You are warriors, and even if it's only the evil Dark Lord and his Death Eaters you are fighting I want to participate in this fight as little as possible. To help you it's not necessary that I know where headquarters is. And the less people know the safer you are."
"But this is stupid, really. What harm would it do if you..."
"Shhh," interrupted Poppy with an abrupt wave of her hand. "I don't intend to discuss ethics with you again, Mr. Lupin. We are here for a different reason today, as you well know. A reason which will require our full attention."
Her gaze wandered towards Snape, and she smiled lightly. "Good to see you up, Professor."
"He was bedridden for more than long enough while in that hut," Molly said as she gripped the handles of the wheel chair and steered Severus towards the middle of the room. She stopped next to a small, wooden table, which she covered with a white drapery.
"And as I see, someone has finally freed you of that gruesome beard," the Mediwitch added casually as she heaved her heavy bag onto the bed, opened it and started rummaging among its contents.
Severus only snorted morosely. Indeed, Molly had only shaved him yesterday. She had not used magic in order to not interfere with today's healing attempt but had shaved him the Muggle way. Not that he had had any say in this, let alone the possibility to resist. He would have had to muster enough energy to put up a fight in the first place anyway. And what in Merlin's name was the big deal with him wearing or not wearing a beard? Well, whatever. When Molly had bent his head backwards and began to shave from neck to chin with a sharp blade, he had been too busy fighting down visions of Voldemort cutting his throat to do much more than sit still like petrified. It did not matter to him at all whether or not she or anyone else in this world liked it better like this.
"Well, let's see then what we can do about your hands." Pomfrey came up to Severus and Molly lifted his right hand. The Mediwitch then began to remove the bandages while explaining the procedure. "The wounds were inflicted by Dark Magic and we will need very strong magic to restore them, if this is possible at all. Mister Lupin has made himself an expert on this and knows the neutralisation procedure best. His task will be to counter the influence of the Dark Magic and neutralise it while I'm going to try to regenerate the skin, muscle, and nerve tissue. Albus will monitor the process, making sure we won't proceed too fast or cause an imbalance in your magical aura. The Dark Magic has etched itself deeply into your hands, and if we aren't extremely cautious, we might make things worse. Molly here is our emergency assistant. If something goes wrong, or if whatever might still be lingering of the Magica Pudidus reacts to the high amount of magic, she will have several potions and Muggle drugs at hand which she can administer promptly."
Soon the hand was freed of the bandages and Severus tried his best not to look at the gaping wound. Instead, he saw Lupin blanch considerably when staring at the thing that once was his hand and that now was laid gently onto the little table with its palm down.
Poppy strode over to her bag and retrieved the Muggle infusion that was all too well known to Severus by now. "We're going to set an IV in case of emergency, Professor Snape," she explained while connecting tubes and needles to the fluid-filled bag. She let some fluid run through, and then hung the bag to a special device on the wheel chair. "Only in case we have to give you Muggle medicine. We might have to act really quick all of a sudden."
With cool professionalism, she pushed Snape's sleeve upwards, tied up his upper arm, and quickly inserted the needle at the end of the infusion tube into a protruding vein in the crook of his arm. After removing the elastic band from his upper arm again, she bent slightly towards him. "It's only a precaution, Severus. With a bit of luck, nothing will go wrong at all, but I like to be prepared for all eventualities.
Severus did not react to her attempt at calming him down. There was nothing to calm. The only thing he truly dreaded was that healing his hands turned out to be impossible and he still survived the attempt.
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TBC
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Translated by Persephone Lupin.
Betaed by Slytherin's silver snake and Sadistra.