Hiding at Hogwarts

~ by Healer Pomfrey ~

All recognizable characters belong to J. K. Rowling, and I am not earning anything by writing this story.
I am not a native speaker of English. Please excuse my mistakes.

6 – Help

"I'll check on Potter tonight," the Potions Master promised and excused himself from the Headmaster and his Deputy. 'I just hope he'll be at the Dursleys. I certainly have more important things to do than to search the whole wizarding world for Potter,' he mused as he strode back to the dungeons through the empty halls of the castle, refusing to even look at the Founder, who recently had turned out to be as annoying as a Gryffindor, when he uttered the password to his private quarters.

Harry's room ~

Harry slept for a few hours, but when he woke up again, he felt that his fever had still gone up. He gulped down his next dose of the potions and tried to sleep again to no avail. 'I'll just continue with my translation,' he decided, unaware that Helga threw him a disapproving look.

"What do you think you're doing?" Salazar growled, but Harry decided to ignore the grumpy professor for the time being.

He spent the day translating and resting in turns, feeling absolutely miserable. Helga observed him in concern, making Dobby force him to eat and check his temperature from time to time. However, during the night, his condition worsened immensely. Realising that his breathing was becoming laboured as he slept, Helga called Dobby, who found out that Harry's fever had climbed up to 41 degrees.

"Harry, I'm sorry, but I must call Madam Pomfrey," she informed the boy in a soft voice, quickly leaving her small portrait when Harry's only reaction was a miserable moan.

HP HEALER POMFREY HP

Poppy jerked awake when Helga suddenly began to speak from her portrait above Poppy's bed.

"What happened?" she asked, quickly throwing her bath robes over, while the Founder told her about Harry, asking to keep the matter to herself at the same time.

Poppy hurried to where the Founder had described the entrance to her quarters to be, assuming that she was only able to see the door because of Helga's strong will. 'I've never noticed this door before,' she realised. A few minutes later, she stood next to a barely conscious Harry Potter in the ancient Healer's living room, worriedly waving her wand over the boy. In order to share her results with the older Healer in the painting, Poppy used diagnostic spells that caused the results to emerge in large letters from the tip of her wand.

"I'm afraid that Mr. Potter has been poisoned," she finally spoke up, causing Helga to nod in agreement. "Harry," Poppy said softly, "I'm sorry, but I need Professor Snape to take a few drops of your blood and analyse it in order to be able to brew the proper antidote."

"No, not Pfessor Snape, please; he hates me and he'll use my limbs for potions ingredients," Harry replied hoarsely, reaching for the Healer's cool hand.

"I'll fetch him," Salazar offered and hurriedly left the painting.

"Harry, it's all right. You're delirious," Poppy said soothingly. "Professor Snape won't harm you, but he is the only one who can help you."

"He'll tell the Headmaster and he'll send me back to the Dursleys," Harry croaked, gripping his head in pain.

"It's all right, Harry. We'll tell him everything about your family, so he won't send you home," Rowena promised from the painting.

Poppy quietly exchanged a few words with the witches in the painting, before she told Harry, "If he tries to send you back, I will report the Dursleys to the Ministry for child abuse, and I'll personally help you to hide."

"You're safe here, Harry. No one is able to enter my quarters, whom I don't want to have here," Helga reassured him, giving Salazar an expectant look when he returned to the painting.

"Severus is absent," he growled. "My portrait said he left around midnight, was in a very bad mood and has yet to return. He'll send him here as soon as he returns."

"Oh no, where can he have gone? I hope he'll return soon," Poppy said in concern and once again waved her wand over Harry, before she transfigured the sofa into a bathtub to cool the boy down.

The Dursleys' residence

Severus Snape apparated straight into the Dursleys' garden, transformed into his snake Animagus form and entered the house through a small opening in the wall. He slithered through the ground floor, confirming that no one was around, before he changed back into his human form and cast an invisibility charm on himself. He thoroughly examined the house, quietly looking in every single room. Multiple snoring greeted him from the room he then assumed to be the Dursleys' bedroom. The second bed room was empty, but furnished with a small bed, a desk, a wardrobe and many broken toys. To Severus' huge surprise, the door was equipped with about a dozen different locks. 'I wonder what they are for,' he mused, quirking an eyebrow as he took in the cat flap at the bottom of the door.

In the next room, he heard someone snore and carefully stepped nearer, recognising the boy he had seen downstairs in the photos that were decorated everywhere. The last room on the second floor was empty, apparently a guest room. On his way back outside, he checked the cupboard under the stairs, realising in surprise that the door was locked with an additional lock as well. He carefully looked inside, noticing an odd inscription in the wall. 'Harry's room' was written in untrained letters, apparently written by a child. 'Potter's room? A cupboard under the stairs?' he thought in disbelief. 'But where is Potter?' There was no sign of the small wizard what so ever, not even his trunk, his broom or his owl. 'Petunia obviously told Mrs. Figg the truth. Potter is not here,' he decided and apparated straight back to the Apparition point.

Helga's living room ~

Madam Pomfrey was sitting on the edge of the sofa, carefully observing Harry sleep, while she talked with Helga, Rowena and Salazar in the painting. From time to time, their conversation was interrupted by Harry's delirious babbling or Godric's snoring.

All of a sudden, Salazar's portrait that was guarding the Potions Master's quarters, slipped into the Founders' painting. "Snape is back and will arrive here in a few minutes," he informed them, before he left again.

"I'll go and let him in," Madam Pomfrey said and stepped out into the empty hall, sighing in relief when she could make out Severus' dark figure in the faint moon light. "Thank God you're here, Severus," she said and quickly informed her colleague about Harry's problem.

Without losing time by asking further questions, the Potions Master magically gathered a few drops of Harry's blood in an empty phial. "I'll probably be back within thirty minutes and four hours, depending on how fast I'll be able to determine the poison and how long it takes to brew the antidote," he said thoughtfully, adding in a barely audible voice, "provided that I have the necessary ingredients."

"Hurry up please, and thank you, Severus," the Healer said softly and returned to the living room to watch over Harry.

To her surprise, Severus returned half an hour later. "It's basilisk poison," he said gravely, "and the only way to make a proper antidote is with more basilisk potion."

"Well, that's no problem," Salazar shouted from the painting. "Take my portrait and go to the Chamber of Secrets. The cadaver of my pet basilisk is still there and ready to be harvested."

"That's true," Helga threw in. "Professor Snape, that's the only method. Take my husband's mini portrait. I think Harry placed it into the bookshelf over there. He went to visit Salazar's library the other day with the help of the mini portrait."

"All right," Severus agreed and immediately left the room when Poppy pressed Salazar's portrait into his hands.

Headmaster's office ~

Professor Dumbledore suddenly jerked awake when an alarm was triggered in his office. Horrified, he jumped out of his bed and arrived in his office in a for his age surprisingly fast speed.

"Albus, what happened?" McGonagall asked sleepily, entering his office through the secret connection door to her private quarters.

"Harry is in danger," the Headmaster replied gravely. "I'll go and check if Severus is back and has any news," he said, before he stepped into the Floo, only to return a few minutes later. "He is not in his quarters."

"But he should be back. He wanted to leave at midnight, and now it's already half past four in the morning. Perhaps he is in his lab?" McGonagall queried, anxiously glancing at the beeping device. "Albus, I'm going to take the Floo to Arabella's place and go to the Dursleys. Maybe Death Eaters are attacking him. I'm too worried to wait here."

"I checked his lab, his office, the classroom and his bedroom. Wait a moment, Minerva. Let me try to contact Severus through a Patronus first," the Headmaster decided, and a white phoenix quickly disappeared into thin air.

tbc...

Thank you so much for your kind comments!