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What it comes down to	By : melinda1293 Category: Harry Potter > Threesomes/Moresomes Views: 115219 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 7
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 11
- 12
- 13
Chapter 12. Awake

Harry fixed his eyes on the door, refusing to look at Lucius. Dread filled him as he tried to steel himself for what was coming. Willing his heart to stop pounding in fear, he tried to swallow his panic at what he knew was about to happen because this wasn’t his first visit from Draco’s father.
He held his breath as Lucius dragged the knife pressed against his neck across his collarbone, slicing through the thin fabric of his shirt, deep enough that tiny beads of blood formed in its wake. Harry didn’t make a sound though it stung like hell because this was the game they played. The game he played with himself to keep from going insane. The game he played with the Death Eaters to delay them becoming bored with him and summoning Voldemort before he could get Ron and Hermione to safety or the Order could come and get them the hell out of here.
They really need to hurry, he thought desperately, blowing the breath out through his nose and drawing in another, his teeth clamped tightly together. He didn’t know how much more of this he could stand.
Lucius was close to him, watching Harry for signs of pain, eager for every drop of agony he could wring out of him. Harry knew in the end Lucius would get what he wanted, Harry screaming in pain, but he held off as long as he possibly could. Every. Single. Time. Screaming from the start just made it seem that much worse, made it seem to go on that much longer. Every time Harry had a round with Lucius, he wanted the bastard to have to fight harder to break him again and again while he tried harder to hold on longer and longer.
Lucius stopped dragging the knife through his skin before he reached his shoulder. Then he set the blade on its tip, pressed against Harry’s chest, just below the collar bone. Gripping the handle with one hand, he placed his palm on the butt of the knife with the other. Pressing down, he forced the tip into the soft flesh. Harry tensed up, clenching his stomach, stiffening his arms and legs as the tip of the blade broke the skin easily and slowly sank into him.
“Ahhhhhh,” Harry moaned, his legs shaking with pain, clenching and unclenching his fists as beads of sweat broke out across his forehead.
He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, and then opened them again to refocus on the door, letting out a shaky breath as the blade sank deeper into his flesh, into the muscle.
Blinking sweat out of his eyes, he looked at Lucius now, who was so close to him that Harry could see tiny dark flecks of imperfections in his pale eyes and smell the alcohol on his breath. He was close enough that Harry could see what having Voldemort as a houseguest was doing to his haughty features, the toll it was taking on him physically. His eyes were bloodshot, and there were dark circles underneath. He had a shadow of stubble on his chin, and his usually perfectly groomed hair hung dirty and lank around his pale face. It definitely didn’t appear that these last few years since the Dark Lord’s return had been kind to Lucius.
“I said I was sorry… about your wand already… didn’t I?” Harry hissed through gritted teeth, panting with pain as he fought off the hysteria trying to take hold of him.
Lucius narrowed his eyes in fury at Harry’s cheek, at the reminder of his loss, and at the memory of his emasculation in front of all the Death Eaters. His nostrils flared as he pressed the knife in still farther, until it hit bone. Harry gasped, his legs jerking, unable to stand still against the pain. Lucius held it there a moment, waiting for Harry to get control of himself again. Then he smiled and began to twist the knife slowly, causing Harry’s eyes to roll up in his head and his body to shake violently. The chains binding him to the wall jangled as he sucked air past his clenched teeth. God, it hurt.
“FUUUUUCCCKKK,” he growled as Lucius continued to apply pressure, smiling to see the reaction he’d pulled from Harry.
The bastard was pure fucking evil, Harry thought. Furious that he couldn’t stay silent any longer, but he wasn’t screaming yet either, so he was counting it as a win in his column, for now, anyway. But he really did wish Lucius had his wand back right now, or just wished he wasn’t so good with a damned knife.
“I wish…I wish Tom hadn’t taken it from… Oh, God….. f..from you, too…I really do,” Harry taunted, panting in pain. “You have…uuhhhnnnn,” he grunted as the knife was wrenched still further, “no…no idea.”
Trembling all over, sweat pouring off him and hyperventilating from the pain, Harry’s heart pounded wildly in his chest. He didn’t know what was making him do it. Provoking Lucius was only making it worse, yet he couldn’t help but fight back any way he could. He knew it was why Lucius was here so often; knew how impotent he felt without his wand, and knew he blamed Harry for the position he’d found himself in with Voldemort. But it was part of the game. Lucius wouldn’t stop until Harry begged, and Harry taunted him to keep him coming back, to keep him from going after Ron or Hermione, to keep him from summoning Voldemort.
Lucius wanted to control him, to break him and hand him over to Tom all tied up with a bow, but Harry wasn’t going to let him, not without a fight.
Harry could feel his blood, warm and sticky, running down his chest, soaking into what remained of his shirt and the waistband of his jeans, as Lucius stopped twisting and removed the pressure. His eyes were wild, his teeth bared in fury at Harry. Then, to Harry’s surprise, he removed the knife altogether, sliding it out slowly, agonizingly. Biting down on his lips, Harry breathed erratically through his nose, afraid of what was next because Lucius was really pissed now. But he wasn’t prepared for what he got.
Jerking his knee up suddenly, Lucius rammed it into Harry’s crotch with tremendous force, and all the air whooshed out of his lungs.
Motherfucker! Lucius hadn’t used anything but the knife before. Preferring a more refined form of torture, he never appeared to want to get his hands dirty, so Harry never saw it coming.
Harry would have screamed then if he could’ve drawn breath. Instead, he drew his legs up into himself involuntarily, trying to curl into a ball, trying to protect them from further harm. Hanging now just by his arms, Harry moaned in agony as pain radiated out from his balls, into his gut, down his legs, and still he couldn’t draw a breath as a wave of nausea rolled over him and stars exploded in his vision.
He’d changed his mind. This round definitely went to Lucius.
“Nothing to say now, Mr. Potter?” Lucius asked with a smirk.
Then he stuck his finger into the fresh wound he’d opened on Harry’s shoulder, digging in the flesh, and Harry finally sucked in a great lungful of air and let it out on a scream.

Harry jerked awake, his heart pounding. Surging with adrenaline, his mouth opened in a scream, but there was no sound. His whole body was aching in real and remembered pain as he stared wildly around the room. He had no idea where he was. He’d expected to find himself in the torture room at Malfoy Manor, but he wasn’t. Then Hermione was there, leaning over him, stroking his face and hand while he shook all over in terror.
“It’s okay, Harry,” she assured him as she wiped the sweat from his forehead. “It’s just a dream. It’s not real.”
But she was wrong. It was real. He could still feel the ache in his chest from the damage Lucius had inflicted. He knew that was reality. This, Hermione here with him, lying on a comfortable bed, safe, that was the dream. That was a trick of his mind.
After a few more panicked moments, his mind rolled through everything that had happened. Everything he could remember played back for him like a film starting up in his head; captured, tortured, raped. He remembered Lucius, Bellatrix, Greyback, Snape, Hermione, and Draco, then the Burrow and Grimmauld Place. He remembered staggering into Sirius’s room in a haze of pain, then into the bathroom with the knife in his hands, and then nothing. Then he knew she was real again, once his fractured mind had caught up. It was the same every time he woke up, the horrible cycle of remembering.
He had no idea how long he’d been out this time or how much time had passed since he first woke up and found Ron and Hermione with him, safe. Every time he saw them, he felt confusion, and then shame, fear, and then disgust, regret, and then hope. It left him miserable with grief and longing, so agitated and in pain, trembling all over when the panic hit that they would finally force another potion down him when he couldn’t get himself under control, when the tears started up at the fear he saw in their eyes, and he would go out again. But he couldn’t understand why they were still with him. How Ron and Hermione had come to be here at all was a mystery he simply couldn’t fathom. Harry was sure he’d left them in Ron’s room and knew he’d destroyed everything there was between them. Yet here she was again, and he flinched at the memories of what he’d done to her when she went to stroke his forehead again.
He opened his mouth to tell her how sorry he was, to beg her forgiveness again, but no sound came out, and his jaw throbbed terribly when he tried, his head pounding so that all he managed to get out was a moan of pain. But he was determined to stay calm this time, to keep from panicking, to stay awake, and so he sucked in several shuddering breaths to calm himself, to control the shaking of his limbs. Blinking at the stinging and watering of his eyes, he tried willing his heartbeat to return to normal, to stop freaking out.
“Everything’s okay,” she was saying in that same soothing tone, trying to help him calm down. “It was just a nightmare. You’re safe now.”
He blinked again several times. Swallowing hard, he then nodded his head so she could see that he understood her. Hermione let out a relieved breath of her own.
“Are you in pain?”
He shook his head, though it made him feel dizzy. In truth, he ached all over. His head was throbbing, but he didn’t want to fall asleep again. Drawing in another deep, calming breath, he tried to stop the shaking of his limbs, but exhaled into a sudden coughing fit that sent fire searing through his lungs and pain exploding in his ribs, his jaw, and his head. Rolling away from her, he curled up against the pain, his arm around his ribs, trying to hold himself together as he gasped for breath between each devastating cough while his vision winked in and out.

The next time he opened his eyes, it was completely dark in the room, and he was flat on his back. Blinking slowly, drowsily, he tried to get his eyes accustomed to the dark. Trying to decide where he was, then because he was entirely too comfortable to be in the torture room. Then he heard Ron’s soft snoring nearby. It was a sound so familiar to him from all their time together in the tent this last year, from sharing a dorm at Hogwarts for six years, from sleeping on a camp bed in Ron’s room when he visited over the summer and Christmas holidays. It was a comforting sound, and with his whole body feeling pleasantly numb, he was still too sleepy to care much right now where he was.
He heard the soft rustle of the sheets, a body shifting next to him and a small sigh. Then a warm hand slid into his, squeezing his fingers slightly while another hand curled around his upper arm. A floral scent filled his nostrils, and he thought of Ginny. Then he knew that he was dreaming.
It was a bizarre dream where Ginny and Ron were both sleeping nearby. Ron would never allow him to be this close to her at night, in bed, curled up next to him so closely. Plus, he’d promised Ron he’d stay away from her, but this was a dream, a good dream, and so he squeezed her fingers back, sighed heavily, and closed his eyes.

He woke up the following morning to find Madame Pomfrey sitting next to him, which left him completely bewildered again.
How in the hell did she get here?
He stared at her, then around the room, then back at her again as he went through the process of remembering once more. Then she spoke to him.
“Welcome back to the land of the living, Mr. Potter,” she greeted him as she checked his pulse. “You’ve given us quite a lot to worry about this time.”
Still totally nonplussed at her appearance in Grimmauld Place, Harry just blinked up at her, but she didn’t seem to notice his confusion or his lack of response as she continued to poke him. Pushing up his eyelids with her fingers, she peered into his eyes, running her lit wand across them so that he could still see the bright streaks of light behind his lids when she released them. Then she opened his mouth to look at his throat, but he pulled out of her grip. Sucking in a painful breath, he glared at her reproachfully.
“I’m sorry, Harry,” she apologized.
Harry raised his eyebrows in surprise at her use of his first name.
“But I need to look you over. I know it’s painful. You’ve suffered through a lot of damage, but I need to check how you’re healing. Just bear with me.”
He nodded reluctantly, and she reached again for his chin, running her fingers along his jaw bone while he tried to sit still for the examination.
A full hour later, marked by a great deal of pain and humiliation, and she was finally done. He felt violated again at the intrusive questions and the intimate prodding of her fingers and wand, though he knew she must already be aware of what they’d done to him. Still, he wished he was still asleep or unconscious again during her visit so she could just get on with it without him knowing what she was doing, of having to endure the mortification of her touching literally every inch of his body.
When she’d removed the bandages on his arms and he saw what he’d done to himself, he felt his face flush in shame, though she didn’t say a word about it. She asked him to grip her hand as hard as he could with each of his hands in turn. He was terrified when he could barely even flex the fingers on his left hand, the arm he’d carved up so badly, while she checked the damage to his nerves. The skin around it felt strangely numb when she ran her wand along the angry-looking jagged scar, which was red and swollen. Then he sat mutely through her recital of all his injuries and wounds and the progress he’d made on each. And when she’d not mentioned his voice, he pointed to his throat in a silent question.
“Right, your voice. Well, I’m sure it will come back, but it needs time to heal. The vocal chords were very badly damaged, and all the screaming you’ve been trying to do, coupled with the potions we’ve been giving you and the coughing, haven’t been doing you any favors in that department. I’m afraid it may never sound the same again, but you will regain your speech. Just give it time.”
Harry nodded his head at this pronouncement, relieved that he wouldn’t be permanently mute. He was already becoming frustrated at his inability to communicate.
“Now then,” she said. “I want to start you on a liquid diet for a few days. Give that jaw a little more time to heal. But some good warm broth in your belly should feel so much better than just the nourishment potions you’ve been on.”
Immediately, his mouth began to water at the thought of food.
“And finally,” she continued. “You need to get up and around as soon as possible, Mr. Potter. You’ve been immobile for far too long. Still, don’t push it. You’ll be very weak. I’ll leave instructions with Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger.”
Patting his leg, she stood, gathering her bag.
“I’ll send up some soup, then. Take care of yourself, dear. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Then she left the room.
Not five minutes later, Dobby suddenly appeared out of thin air next to Harry on the bed with a loud pop. Harry jerked away from him in alarm. Trying to scream again, his hands flew up to protect himself, and he tumbled backwards off the bed, slamming his head on the bedside table as he went down before landing painfully on his back, which knocked the breath out of him.
Lying there on the floor as his vision swam, he tried to draw breath into lungs that felt like they’d been flattened by the impact, while trying to understand what the hell had just happened. Then Dobby was beside him again, looking horrorstruck at Harry, tears welling in his enormous tennis-ball-sized eyes. And then Ron was there, too. Harry flinched at the furious expression on his face as he reached down for him, grabbed him by the upper arms, and pulled him to his feet. Turning him so Harry’s back was pressed against him, Ron wrapped his arm around Harry’s chest, bracing him in a one-armed hug as he gripped Harry by the shoulder.
Ron was supporting most of his weight, pinning his arms to his sides, holding Harry upright, which was good because Harry was so dizzy that if Ron let go, he knew he’d slide right back down him to the floor. His legs were trembling so badly, it felt like someone had cast a jelly legs jinx on them, and he knew they wouldn’t support him at all. Madame Pomfrey wasn’t lying when she said he’d be weak.
“What the hell, Dobby?” Ron yelled angrily as he probed the back of Harry’s head with his fingers.
Harry jerked in fright again at the anger in Ron’s voice and at the sharp stab of pain from the lump growing on his head as Ron ran his fingers over it. Harry gripped Ron’s forearm braced across his chest with both hands to try and steady himself because the room was starting to spin.
“Oh, sorry, Harry,” he apologized, turning a bewildered and disoriented Harry into him, tucking him into his chest.
Then Ron bent slightly and placed his other arm behind Harry’s knees and lifted him, depositing him back onto the bed.
Harry was too stunned at being handled like a rag doll to protest as Ron let go of him and replaced the blanket across his lap, bunching the pillows behind him to prop him up, while Dobby sobbed his apology.
“Dobby was not meaning to scare Harry Potter, sir,” Dobby explained through his tears. “Dobby was just bringing Harry Potter his soup. Dobby was so excited to see Harry Potter awake.”
He was wailing, pulling on his ears.
Harry nodded at the elf, trying to let him know it was okay, that he was all right, though he was still stunned at this latest unexpected visitor to Grimmauld Place. He squinted myopically around again to make sure he wasn’t at Hogwarts instead.
What the hell had happened here after he’d taken the knife to his arms? How many others were lurking downstairs? Was the entire Hogwarts staff taking up residence at Number Twelve now?
Then Dobby ran suddenly towards the wardrobe, ramming headlong into it. Ron yelped in surprise, dashing forward to pick the dazed elf up off the floor, yelling more curses while Harry sat propped on the bed with his mouth open in shock. He was thinking more and more that this whole thing was some elaborate dream his delusional mind had concocted for his own twisted entertainment as his head started throbbing in pain with the beat of his heart and the room continued to teeter on its axis.
“What on earth?” Hermione said as she entered the room and took in the scene: Harry pale on the bed, his eyes huge, round with shock; Ron holding an unconscious elf in his arms; the tray with Harry’s soup left abandoned on the bed.
“The damned elf scared the shit out of Harry, and then just did a runner at the dresser!” Ron explained in stunned disbelief. “I couldn’t stop him. He’s a complete nutter, Hermione.”
Dobby was stirring now in Ron’s arms, coming around again, blinking in confusion.
“Are you all right, Harry?” Hermione asked him in concern, but he just stared at her in a bemused sort of way, blinking slowly, his mouth still open in surprise.
“Right then. Ron, why don’t you take Dobby back downstairs, and get him settled down? I’ll give Harry his soup before it gets cold.”
“Yeah, all right,” Ron agreed. “Check his head, though.”
He nodded at Harry as he walked towards the door.
“I think he hit it on the table. It’s bleeding,” he told her over his shoulder as he carried Dobby back out of the room.
Hermione collected the tray and hurried around to Harry’s side of the bed. Placing it across his lap, she sat down on the edge next to him. Then pulling his head forward by the back of the neck, she pressed his forehead into her shoulder while she examined the knot throbbing on the back of his skull, clucking her tongue as she ran her fingers over the swelling lump.
Harry was surprised again, taken aback at how both she and Ron were manhandling him. They’d become entirely too familiar with his body. Too used to his silent compliance, they didn’t ask his permission, or giving any warning, or anything, before touching him, grabbing him, carrying him, for God’s sake! It was starting to get annoying. He was awake now. Didn’t they know?
He jerked when she wadded up the napkin from the tray and pressed it hard against the gash on his head. Damn, it stung! She held it there, putting pressure on it to stop the bleeding, pressing his forehead harder into her shoulder for a few more minutes, which felt good on his throbbing headache, before dabbing at it again with the napkin and then releasing him.
“Well,” she said with a sigh, running her hands through his hair, feeling for more injuries. “I don’t think there will be any permanent damage, but Madame Pomfrey will have our hides for this. Are you hurt anywhere else?” she asked, dropping the napkin into her lap.
He shook his head, which was still resting on her shoulder. He felt lethargic, his eyes drooping, too much excitement for him for one day, perhaps. He’d been awake for more than two hours now, which was a record for him, he reckoned. Still, he was eager to eat some of the soup Dobby brought up that had smelled so delicious. So he lifted his head with effort because it felt like it weighed a lot more than usual, and tried to stop the spinning of the room by clutching the blanket in his fists.
Harry was only able to get about half the soup down before he was feeling extremely full. With his belly rounded up, his eyes grew too heavy to stay open on their own, and his head nodded forward. The soporific effect of the warm broth in his stomach was just too much for him, or maybe it was from the concussion he suspected he now had from the blow to his head. Either way, he was going out again. He didn’t feel Hermione remove the tray from his legs, or remove some of the pillows from behind his head so he could lie down, or the soft kiss she planted on his lips as she tucked the blanket back around him.
The next time he woke was early evening. It may have been the same day. He didn’t know for sure. Hermione was propping pillows behind him, elevating him while he blinked himself awake and tried to orient himself, once again, to his surroundings. It was getting better though, he decided, understanding coming back to him faster with fewer traumas this time.
He ached all over again, his back and shoulder stiff and head throbbing from the backwards somersault he’d done off the bed the last time he’d been awake.
Now for my next trick, he thought stupidly.
“I’m sorry to wake you, Harry, but it’s time for your potions again,” she apologized.
Clamping his mouth shut automatically, he shook his head, still not fully awake. He didn’t want any more potions, he thought mulishly, childishly. No more potions, thank you! No potions that made him fall asleep, that made him feel weak and light headed, that made his head feel like it was stuffed with cotton and left his tongue feeling furry. No potions that tasted bad, that tasted like pepper and made him wild with desire for her — and then his mind froze up at the memory, everything coming to a screeching halt, his whole body going stiff.
His heart started to pound, and his mouth went dry. He was panicking again, trembling all over at the memory of what they’d made him do to her, catching him unprepared at the suddenness of the images flooding through him. And she was much too close to him! He could smell the soap she used on her skin, the shampoo in her hair, filling his nostrils with her scent, making him remember what she smelled like then, what she felt like, his body pressed against hers, inside her — NO NONO!
Kicking out wildly, frantically, Harry tried to scramble backwards, away from her on the bed, though his limbs wouldn’t obey him properly. He was terrified of his body’s response to her, at the arousal he felt stirring in him at her nearness. He was hysterical with fear as she continued to reach for him, looking shocked at his violent reaction.
Sound was coming from him now, broken, raspy, terror-filled sounds, and a crushing, burning weight was pressing down on his chest. Then he was coughing again, the pain taking his breath away. Oh, God! He was falling apart, and he couldn’t stop it happening.
Then Ron was there, holding him down, and he was even more afraid. Thrashing on the bed now, Harry tried to scream. His hands scrabbled at the back of Ron’s wrists, trying to free himself, but Ron wouldn’t let go. Lying on top of him, across his chest, Ron pressed him into the mattress as his feet thrummed on the bed in utter terror.
“Petrificus Totalus!” Hermione cried.
Harry’s body immediately went stiff all over from the body bind curse she’d cast, ending his frantic attempt to escape them. The spell held him immobile, but alert, as waves of panic rolled over him, and tears slid from the corners of his eyes into his hair. Remembering when Bellatrix held him under this curse in the torture room, he remembered the lessons she’d taught him then.
He wanted them to give him the fucking potions now, or to knock him in the head, stun him, obliviate his memory, something, anything to knock him out again, to stop the memories of that place, of what they did to him, and of what he did to her. But they didn’t. They talked quietly to him, trying to calm him down again while his mind bombarded him with horrific images from the dungeons of Malfoy Manor.
Ron whispered quietly to Hermione as he held her while she sobbed into his shoulder. She was crying, and it was his fault. He’d made her cry again like he had done then, but he didn’t mean to. He’d tried not to hurt her. He couldn’t help it. He couldn’t tell her how sorry he was, though he was screaming it in his head, over and over again. Telling them both that he was sorry, he was so sorry.
It was several minutes before Hermione stopped crying on Ron, and even longer before the fear and panic flooded out of Harry, leaving him exhausted. Yet still, they didn’t release him. He continued to lay frozen on the bed as Hermione and Ron left it, walking around the room, out of his limited line of sight. It made him feel afraid again. Afraid that they wouldn’t come back, that they’d finally had enough of him, Harry feared that they had come to their senses and left him for good. But then they were both beside him once more, standing over him. Hermione lifted the spell at last, and his limp body sank into the bed.
“All right,” she said, sniffling. “Let’s try this again. Everything’s going to be okay, Harry. Ron and I aren’t trying to hurt you,” she told him sternly, sounding like she had a bad head cold.
Harry slowly nodded his head as she wiped at her eyes.
“We’ll take it more slowly then, all right?”
He nodded again.
“Right, then, let’s get you propped back up.”
Only it was Ron who leaned over him this time, not Hermione. Sliding his arm under Harry’s neck and lower back, Ron pulled him upwards while Harry awkwardly tried to help push himself up with his hands and elbows. And Harry felt considerably less panicked at Ron’s touch instead of Hermione’s. Ron scooped pillows behind him until he was almost sitting before releasing him.
“Okay. This potion is an antibiotic for your infections, particularly in your lungs,” Hermione announced, holding up a bottle. “We’re going to give you a dose of this.”
Harry nodded again, signaling his compliance as she pulled the stopper and poured out a dose into a spoon. Opening his mouth to accept it, he grimaced as he swallowed it down, but was relieved to find himself still calm.
“Good. Now this one’s a blood replenisher.”
Harry accepted it, too, without complaint.
“This one’s for pain…”
But he was shaking his head already.
“Harry, I know you’re in pain,” she argued, but he shook his head again, refusing point blank to take it.
“Fine.”
Clearly, she was deciding it was better not to try and fight him, he thought with relief.
“One more, then,” she continued, holding up a fourth bottle.“This one is a nourishment potion, all right?” she asked.
He stared at it suspiciously a moment, and then nodded again, opening his mouth willingly when she poured out a spoonful.
“Wonderful, Harry,” she praised him after he swallowed it down. “That was wonderful.”
It made him feel like a dog that had just learned a new trick, or like Crookshanks when he’d brought Hermione a dead spider he’d just caught. Harry frowned at her.
Ron smiled at the look on his face before rolling his eyes at Harry in a familiar gesture that clearly said, She’s mental, that one. Then he clapped his hands together and said, “All right, then. More delicious broth for you for dinner, and then you’re getting your nails clipped, Harry.”
Lifting the back of his hands to Harry, Ron showed him the scratches he’d left on them while Hermione called for Dobby, who appeared again suddenly in the room, glancing sheepishly at Harry. She spoke quietly to him for a moment, and he vanished again with a pop, returning moments later with another bowl of steaming broth. It was chicken this time, and Harry’s stomach growled loudly when the scent filled his nostrils, feeling suddenly ravenous again.
Harry stubbornly insisted on feeding himself, but found that he was extremely clumsy, which caused Dobby to have to anxiously mop him up after every bobbled spoonful or dribbled attempt. His hands were still too swollen from sleep and disuse to grasp the spoon firmly enough, even with his good hand. It trembled badly, the spoon clanking against the side of the bowl every time he spooned up another mouthful and tried to steer it towards his lips. It must have looked comical, or just pathetic, but no one said a word. Finally admitting defeat, Harry turned the spoon over to Dobby.
The elf appeared utterly delighted to feed Harry the rest of the soup, happily poking spoonfuls into his mouth while Hermione took the opportunity to trim his overlong, ragged nails down to the quick.
“There, that’s much better,” Hermione declared when she had finished both hands, and he waved off another spoonful of soup.
He couldn’t hold anymore. Dobby seemed distressed that he hadn’t finished it all, but he just couldn’t.
Hermione touched the tip of her wand to his stomach, muttered a spell, and his bladder emptied suddenly. Harry jerked in surprise, letting out a tiny squawk of indignation, though she took no notice. He was feeling light headed again, his eyes suddenly heavy as Dobby removed the tray. Then he realized that Hermione had put the pain potion in his soup, or had Dobby do it for her.
Shit, he thought. That was low, even for her, and he’d seen her do some pretty devious things.
“Tomorrow,” she announced unapologetically at the look of dawning comprehension on his face. “You’re getting out of this bed, Harry, and getting a shave. You’re going to get a proper bath and have that hair washed, too. Honestly, it’s starting to look like Snape’s.”
Snape, he thought, trying to fight off the potion’s effects, the mention of his name jarring a memory loose. He needed to tell them something about Snape, and Lucius, too. But his mind was working too slowly now, shutting down.
Snape wasn’t who they believed he was. He’d tried to rescue them … well, him, anyway. The fucking git! And Lucius…Lucius was dead. Voldemort had killed him. Harry had seen it, he’d felt it.

~ . ~

The last 3 chapters with Hermione's POV were actually supposed to be 1 chapter, but it didn't work out that way, LOL, and I intended to end the story there too with Harry waking up at the end, but I still have more story to tell I think. Ron up next.
G.
- 11
- 12
- 13
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What it comes down to

Chapter 12. Awake