"What happened here, young man?" the healer asked, in a tone that made Severus grind his teeth.
"I woke up like this."
'I got bit by a giant snake in the future, and woke up in a body thirty years too young' was likely to earn him long-term accommodations in the Janus Thickey ward, and hallucination or not, Severus did not want to suffer through that humiliation.
"Does it hurt?"
"It's as delightful as a hot poker to the eye."
"Severus!" Eileen smacked his arm.
Severus scoffed. "It's not as bad as it was when I woke up, but yes, it hurts. Obviously."
"Have you touched or eaten anything unusual in the last few days? Played somewhere dirty, and forgotten to wash your hands?"
Severus rolled his eyes. Only in the shrieking shack, where the blood on my hands had nothing to do with poor hygiene. "No."
"Severus, be respectful," Eileen snapped.
Severus scowled. He hated being a child. He hated it even more than he hated teaching the little bastards.
"Look at me, son. I'm going to do a few diagnostic spells. It won't hurt, but there will be a bright light."
"I'll be sure to head towards it," Severus muttered, folding his arms petulantly.
I'm a fucking potions master. I bet ten thousand galleons that I could cure myself faster than you can, if I only had access to a fully stocked lab, and my wand.
The bright light did hurt. Severus instinctively blinked against the pain, and a tear trickled, unbidden, down his cheek. "Ow."
"All done," the healer said cheerfully. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"
Severus glared at the man.
The man had the audacity to chuckle as he checked the quick-quilled notes of the diagnosis.
It was like Severus had lost a superpower. He hadn't realized just how much he relied on being intimidating, until now that it'd been taken away.
Maybe he'd look older and scarier with an eye patch…
"Oh," the healer said, flipping back and forth between his pages of notes. "This is interesting."
"What is it, Healer?" Eileen asked, with that simpering, submissive tone that set Severus' teeth on age.
You're a grown-ass woman. Act like it, for once.
"It's curious. Severus seems to be suffering from the secondary symptoms of multiple maladies, including poisoning, infection, and… a dark spell damage."
"What?!" Severus and Eileen exclaimed at the same time.
"How is that possible?" Eileen asked.
The healer looked at her dubiously, suspiciously. "Perhaps you can tell me."
Eileen huffed. "I rarely perform magic of any kind these days, let alone anything dark. The boy's father is a muggle, and magic just doesn't suit our lifestyle."
Severus bit the inside of his lip. You mean he'll beat us senseless if you use magic, even though you could use magic to stop him, if you weren't such a coward.
"Are there any other wizards or witches living near you?"
"Not that I'm aware of," Eileen said, wringing her hands. "I don't socialize with the magical community much, anymore."
"What about you, Severus?" the healer asked. "Have you come into contact with a stranger in the last few days, or felt strange around an adult you thought you could trust? Have you seen anything strange happen that you can't explain?"
"No, there's no dark wizard secretly lurking around our neighborhood," Severus said.
Both the healer and Eileen narrowed their eyes at him. "Sev, sweety, have you been threatened by anyone? Told to keep a secret? I promise I can keep you safe."
You can't even fight off a muggle. Merlin, Severus needed to rethink his mannerisms. Everything that worked so well for him as an adult kept backfiring on him as a child.
"No, mother. I haven't talked to anyone lately, nor have I seen anything suspicious."
"Are you sure? It's okay to tell me."
"I'm sure, mother. I'm fine."
Eileen ruffled Severus' hair, prompting him to duck out of the way.
She smiled at him as if he were an adorable kitten.
It was maddening.
"Hold on," the healer said, still surveying his notes. "There's a hint of something else here. I'll have to run some specialized tests, but there seems to be a trace of temporal magic binding the symptoms together."
Severus choked. "W-what?"
"Time magic," the healer said kindly, as if Severus' distress came from not understanding big words. "I've never seen anything like this before."
"What does that mean for my son?" Eileen asked slowly.
"I honestly don't know. I haven't specialized in time magic. I don't know of a healer who has. We may need to consult the Ministry on this one."
"The Department of Mysteries?" Eileen asked dubiously, wrapping a protective arm around Severus' shoulders.
"It might be necessary."
"I don't want the Ministry poking at me," Severus pleaded, shoving as much melodrama into the words as he could muster. He could not afford to become a curiosity in the Department of Mysteries. He'd never be seen nor heard from, again!
The healer's eyes softened. "I'll see what I can figure out on my own, first, shall I? There doesn't seem to be any immediate danger. The infection has stabilized, and since there's no primary source aggravating things, I don't believe there'll be another flare-up."
"Yes, please," Severus said, his voice shaky and small in a way that was not entirely faked. "Thank-you, Healer."
"In the meantime, let me put a bandage over the eye, to keep it from getting contaminated, and ma'am, be sure to do a thorough scouring of your home, just in case. Look for anything out of the ordinary, or dirty, or dark. Anything at all."
"Yes, Healer."
"Very well, then. Now, onto important matters. Would you like a lollipop, Severus?"
Severus bit back his sneer, and nodded.
