The afternoon was ending and most of the orders of the day were still in the oven. Harmony had started to work later than what she had predicted when she woke up that morning.

'Way too much stuff to process...' Harmony reflected thoroughly.

'I'm sorry, I didn't meant to leave you so behind with your work.' Severus Snape apologized from the couch.

Harmony raised her eyes to look in his direction. He looked sorrowful after the hours they had spent going over his time at St. Mungus. Those so called healers had made more damage than good, if any good at all. It was heavy information to go through. That man may still recover but at the cost of how much more suffering and valuable time? He was surely in his forties already. He had lost already too much time in between masters and wars. Life was way too unfair sometimes. What they had done to him bordered the unthinkable if she was to number the kinds of abuse he had been subjected to.

"It's hardly your fault Sir. That had to be talked about if I am to help you to any measure. It was the reason why we made this link at all." She replied while she took yet another cake from the oven and put it to rest on top of the table.

'If you say so yourself... I can feel how uncomfortable you are since we talked woman.' The dour wizard remarked while glancing at the fire.

Rufus kept sleeping beside the couch to keep company to the man. They were getting attached fairly easily.

"I used to be a healer in training before the war Sir. I made vows to be there, I went through it all. Just to think about what kind of people you were left with makes my blood boil. I may need some time to centre myself again on the matter. I beg you to allow me that. Meanwhile, I feel more prepared to help you recover. I will proceed to some research on my library and that should solve part of my doubts."

'What chances do you think I have?'

"With the information I now have... Perhaps 30 or 40 percent of chances of recovery."

She heard a smooth low laughing sound in her head. It felt bitter however.

'I almost thought that you would lie more and offer me 50 percent or even the hundred.' Severus stated in a somewhat cynical way.

Harmony sighed and crossed her arms over her chest while closing her eyes and leaning to the worktop. He felt discouraged besides he had had to go through remembering it all for her. She only had two more pies in the oven and after they came out she would take him to the room and spend some quality time with him. He needed it strongly that day. She could resume her baking later.

Getting closer to the couch, she grasped the back of it for support.

'I'm certain that you will understand soon enough that I don't lie Sir. Specially when the odds are against us. I may have hopes higher than the number I gave you but I won't lie to your face just to uplift your spirits.'

Hearing her voice resounding inside his mind made him turn his head to look directly at her eyes. There was no shadow of mischief there.

'Have you higher hopes?' Severus asked now in a more easy going way. Her behaviour never ceased to interest and surprise him. Not because she made anything extraordinary but exactly because she made everything seem so normal around her.

"As a matter of fact, I do. If we take it all into consideration, you could be much worse than you are. You could be missing limbs. You could be missing your tongue. You could be mad. From what I gathered the main issue that caused your whole system to shut down was the poison. It may still be there running through your system, disabling your body of its capacity to heal. Your vocal chords are the thing that I don't know if I will ever be able to fix. They are out of my area of expertise but perhaps more in the future we could go and see some doctors about it. Other than that, I do believe you could go around your life sooner than you think. You have lost too much weight and muscle mass to be able to stand or even sit by yourself. If we fix that we can start fixing the rest of it step by step Sir. I have in mind to start some physical therapy next week. You already regained a few pounds since you came here."

It made sense, he would give her that. She had it all thought out and in the way she had it, it made perfectly good sense, every step of it. Still, the idea of never being able to talk again left him feeling sad.

'You could learn sign language. We could both learn it if you want. Muggles have been using it for decades and it works for them. Why not giving it a try?' Harmony suggested through the bond. She must have listened his trail of thoughts.

"I did." She smiled to him in a playful way. "Sorry, but you are actually quite loud inside you know?"

'You must surely be the first ever person to call me loud in that way.' He offered, eyeing her pointedly from an angle. 'But I will think about the sign language thing, I promise.'

"That would be nice. Now... Those last pies must be already on the right point to come out. I was planning to take you to the room and get you in the bathtub. The day was a demanding one for us and you still have a lot of rest to do if you want to recover. What do you say about it?"

'It does sound nice. I've been liking the baths you give me.' Severus admitted, blushing at the thought. He turned away as he sensed it.

'Do you feel ashamed of your emotions Sir?'

'They are a luxury I couldn't indulge in quite some time.'

'Either you believe it or not, I do understand it. Until I met you, my only emotional partner was Rufus. When we go through two wars like we did we get more tough than perhaps we would like. Still, here we are stuck together. In a good way, don't look at me like that. What I'm trying to say is that I don't feel the need to be all tough with you around me. And since you first arrived, you weren't that tough around me either I think. There is no shame in opening up a bit, if we trust someone.'

'You trust me, Harmony?'

That was the first time since the connection had been made that he had used her Christian name. It felt good to say it.

'I do. Do you trust me Sir?'

'Severus.'

"Hum?" She almost choked at the mention of his name. Was he suggesting a first name basis?

'Actually I am.' He confirmed, managing a Cheshire cat type of smile. Ups... This time she had slipped. This connection thing could actually become more funny than mortifying if this was a sample of what it would be to share a bound with someone, Severus conceded.