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The Unexpected Side Effect of Draught No. 9	By : lovetoseverus Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Snape Views: 25605 -:- Recommendations : 5 -:- Currently Reading : 6
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: Draught No. 3

Severus looked down at the potion bubbling away in his cauldron and carefully sprinkled ground dittany over the boiling surface of the liquid. Just as the mixture turned the desired shade of green, he tapped the base of the cauldron with his wand to reduce the heat to a simmer, and then scratched off a line in his journal with a long-feathered quill.

He was just about finished with the list of potions Poppy had requested of him two days prior. Obligations or not, he was grateful for tasks that kept him busy, particularly now – it meant less time to notice the clock on the wall reminding him that Harry was late.

He shouldn’t really be upset by this – Evochi was, after all, completely optional, and Harry was under no obligation to continue with it. Severus hadn’t even been concerned when the owl he sent earlier in the week, confirming the time, went unanswered. It was mostly rhetorical anyway. What would be unusual, though, is if Harry just stopped showing up without saying anything.

Severus sighed and got up from behind his work table. He resented the twinge of panic that began to stir in his mind. Surely if something had happened to Harry he would have heard by now? As he walked into his antechamber, he glanced around – hoping to find what, he didn’t know. Perhaps Harry. He scoffed at his ridiculousness, but also knew he did not idle well and needed to make himself useful.

Looking toward the mantle, he saw that Harry was now twenty minutes late. Before he could dwell on it, however, there was a knock at his door. Relief surged through him. But what if it wasn’t Harry? Pushing that thought from his mind, he marshaled his composure and approached the door. He paused for a moment with his hand on the knob and breathed in deeply in an effort to relax himself, holding the air in his lungs. As he swung the door open, he allowed himself a quiet exhale.

It was Harry.

SSHP-SSHP-SSHP

Harry marched in without invitation and immediately began talking.

“Sorry I’m late, Professor,” he said hurriedly. “I got talking to Hermione upstairs and I lost track of time…”

“Severus,” came the response, just as the door was closed and warded.

Harry froze and looked over at Severus, then flushed slightly when he realized what he had said. Seeing Hermione at Hogwarts had put him in the mindset of being a student again, and his old habits – along with the requirement to use honorifics – had re-emerged. In many ways, he realized he still felt like a student, or at least that he still belonged here somehow.

“Oh, right. Sorry about that.”

Severus merely looked down the length of his nose at Harry, his face steeled and serious. When Harry swallowed thickly, Severus relaxed his expression, one of his brows inching towards his hairline.

“Never mind,” he said, clearly fighting a smirk. “Come, let’s get started.”

Bewildered, Harry stared back at Severus. What was that all about? he wondered. Chalking it up to his already surreal day, he merely followed Severus into the lab. As he walked, he noticed Severus’ clothes were casual again. Now that school was nearly back in session, he assumed Severus would be donning his teaching robes all the time. Perhaps that was only for outside his quarters, and off-hours this was more typical? Or could it be for Harry’s benefit? He didn’t dare indulge that thought. One thing rarely changed, though, which he noted with surprising interest: Severus’ attire was almost always black.

He does look good in black, Harry admitted to himself, watching as his former professor headed off to his stores at the back of the lab. After a moment, and with a small start, Harry realized his eyes had been following Severus’ arse the whole time.

SSHP-SSHP-SSHP

When Harry leaned back against the chaise, his stomach began to growl. He rubbed one of his hands over his abdomen and again lamented the fact he had to leave home without touching his lunch. He thought briefly about asking if Severus had any food, but decided against it when Severus walked back into the room carrying a familiar vial of indigo fluid, summoning his black chair to follow him as he approached.

While Severus prepped everything, Harry tried to make himself comfortable. Now that he was here, he thought his nerves would abate. They didn’t. He felt strangely unsettled about this session and tried to convince himself he was just being paranoid, but he still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. At least Severus would be with him the whole time. That fact did actually provide some much-needed comfort, though it was like eating sugar for every meal – he knew it wouldn’t sustain him for long.

“Are you prepared?” came Severus’ query.

Harry nodded automatically and leaned his head back against the soft fabric of the chaise. He had just enough time to think, Well, here goes nothing, before he spoke the incantation aloud. Then the potion covered his tongue in warm, dense threads and rapidly sent him off to his subconscious.

SSHP-SSHP-SSHP

The thick forest surrounding Harry felt foreign at first but he imagined it would make sense soon enough, if his previous sessions with Evochi were anything to go by. It seemed to be just before dawn, the color of the scant light around him indicative of sunrise. He got up off the ground and brushed the leaves from his denims. The temperature in the air was cool and it sent gooseflesh spreading across his bare arms. He shivered, the foreboding sense he had hoped to escape by taking Evochi now more omnipresent than ever.

As he began to walk towards the only path in sight, he tried to search his mind. With a flutter of panic, he couldn’t recall what he had held in his mind as the Evochi had taken effect. What scene had he been picturing that it thought to bring him here? And where was here?

He reached over to touch a small tree, confirming for himself that this place was not a mirage. He cast his eyes about his surroundings, the scent of damp foliage filling his nostrils. Although his mind felt strangely blank, he got the sense that he was, indeed, in an Evochi reality.

Before long, the path he was following opened into a clearing and the sunlight began to peek over the edge of the horizon. Oddly, it did not warm the setting in the slightest – if anything, it only seemed to mock it. Harry glanced around, puzzled; he did not recognize this place at all. Towards the center of the clearing, he could just make out the profiles of two stone benches and decided to make his way closer to see if they jarred his memory. It was then that he wondered if Evochi had the ability to create places that didn’t exist in any other reality.

He took in more details as he walked. This place, wherever he was, was very still. There were no birds or wildlife to be seen despite the abundance of nature. As he approached the closer of the two benches, he caught a glimpse of something on the ground behind it. The nearer he got, the more it came into focus, until he was close enough to realize what it was.

A shoe.

But not just a shoe. A shoe still attached to a foot, and a leg.

Harry’s heartbeat began to pound in his throat and he stepped even closer, enough so that he could lean over the bench to see who was lying on the grass behind it. As he did so, and his eyes took in the familiar face before him, he clutched a hand to his chest in a vain attempt to keep the breath from escaping his lungs. The body before him was lying motionless; the gray eyes, lifeless; the strikingly handsome face still frozen in shock. Harry’s brain ground to a halt as fear gripped him. His voice, although little more than a hoarse whisper, cut loudly into the eerie silence.

“Cedric…?”

SSHP-SSHP-SSHP

Severus could already tell something was different about this session. Suddenly alert, he sat up straighter in his chair and set his journal and quill aside, eyeing Harry carefully, calculatingly. Although something noteworthy was occurring, his instinct was to watch now and record the details later.

Harry was laying on the chaise as always, but his face had contorted into one of distress, where normally it would have been relaxed and placid. Evochi was an expression of the inner mind – the subconscious, not the physical body – even though physical reactions were possible, if not likely. But to see them so early in a session, and this one in particular, was troubling.

Concern furrowed Severus’ brow and he felt a rising panic in his throat at the thought that there might be something wrong with this particular dose of Evochi. Severus scrutinized Harry’s features and body closely, looking for any sign of a malformed potion, but found none. Not that he could do anything even if he had. The potion had to be allowed to wear off naturally – any attempt to interrupt an Evochi session with either potions or spells could have disastrous effects.

The absence of symptoms proved only a brief respite, though, for any relief Severus might have felt was quickly dashed when Harry suddenly whimpered in distress.

Severus quickly pushed his chair back and kneeled down on the floor next to the chaise, his heartbeat racing in his chest, preparing for what he would later regard as one of the most agonizing fifty-three minutes of his life.

SSHP-SSHP-SSHP

Despite every instinct in his body telling him not to, Harry reached down and touched Cedric’s forearm. It was cold and unyielding. He snapped his hand away quickly, more in confusion than in surprise. He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, exactly, but his mind was reeling regardless. Harry sat on the edge of the stone bench and closed his eyes tightly, painfully. What did this mean? Why was Cedric here?

What was this place?

Harry forced himself to think about a time when Cedric was alive. The help they had given each other in the Tri-Wizard Tournament tasks, that fateful walk through the maze of hedges, the cup that was actually a Portkey, the graveyard…

Shouldn’t thinking about something create it in this reality? Harry wondered.

As Harry opened his eyes to see, he stared unfocused into the distance. His peripheral vision told him Cedric was still lying on the ground in exactly the same spot. And still dead. He felt his emotions go numb and refused to indulge whatever trick of Evochi this was.

It’s not real! he stubbornly chastised to himself.

But when he got off the stone bench and turned to walk away, his heel caught on something about the size and shape of a small log and he tripped backwards. As he landed on the grass, he caught sight of what it was: someone’s leg. But not just any someone. As Harry leaned forward, the stock-still but determined face of one Colin Creevey came into view. Harry scrambled backwards suddenly and got to his feet, his breathing ragged. Caught in between fear and anger, he looked around, trying desperately to make some sense of what was happening.

With the sun coming up a bit more now, it was starting to cast its light wider across the expanse of the clearing. He could just make out what looked like a doorway at one end – perhaps more of an archway, if he had to guess – put together with roughly-shaped stones. He took off towards it, half-running, half-walking. As the structure came fully into view, he found it hauntingly familiar. He stopped in his tracks, his heartbeat in his throat. In the center of the arch, floating gently in some non-existent breeze, was a sheer, tattered fabric that resembled a veil…

“No,” Harry breathed out loud. “No… no…”

With a hand out in front of him, as though to stop what he feared was about to happen, he made to step away from the opening and instead backed right into something solid. He shrieked in surprise and whipped around, finding himself face-to-face with Mad-Eye Moody. Eerily, Mad-Eye was standing upright but his head had drooped downward. His normal eye was closed while his magic eye still whirled in its socket. His skin was pallid and he, too, was rigid. If ever Harry needed the visual confirmation that Mad-Eye had perished in the flight to escape Voldemort, this was definitely it.

Wide-eyed and unable to speak, Harry swallowed into a dry throat. Then a light scuffling noise behind him made him jump again and as he turned, he saw a hand appear on the inner side of the arch. Without moving or blinking, he watched as the hand become an arm, which became a shoulder, which became a head with straggly black hair, which became a man – who lingered in the archway for a moment and then started to fall forwards.

“Sirius!” Harry yelled and lunged for his Godfather, catching him as best he could. Barely able to hold on, he let them both slump to the ground as gingerly as he could manage with the momentum. He rolled Sirius onto his back and looked down into glassy, unfocused eyes.

“NO!” Harry cried. Desperately, he ran his hands over Sirius’ shoulders and chest, shaking him, not willing to let him go again, hoarsely crying out his name over and over again. But when Sirius didn’t respond, he knew the futility of his efforts. He bowed his head over the lifeless body before him, balling his fists tightly as a surge of anger seethed through him.

Then, to his left, another sound – this time of digging. In horror, he looked over to see the grass starting to push itself upwards, slowly at first and then more rapidly. As it gave way to the damp earth beneath it, he could just make out the semblance of long, thin, knobby fingers clawing towards the surface. He knew immediately what – or who – he would find once the digging had stopped, and could not bear the sight, or the wait. He stood up and ran away from that spot as fast as his feet would carry him. But when he neared the center of the clearing, he couldn’t help his morbid curiosity and looked back over his shoulder. Silhouetted against the barely-lit horizon, Harry could just make out the large, bat-like ears of Dobby before the diminutive figure of the elf collapsed onto the grass before him and moved no more.

Distraught and gasping for air, Harry tripped as he turned back around and landed hard on the grass on his knees. He dropped his head, coughing miserably to try and regain his breathing. He was beginning to see that running would do no good here. This was inescapable. Somehow his worst nightmare was playing out before his eyes and he was powerless to stop it.

Whatever happened to me creating the realities? he raged internally.

Confused and furious, he screamed into the deafening silence as loud as he could, his fists balled so tightly they turned white, his fingernails digging into his palms. All of the anger and pain coursing through him seemed to burn his lungs with the intensity and emotion. Instead of an echo, though, the clearing around him seemed to swallow the sound whole.

Frustrated, and still panting from the exertion, Harry looked around with despair. All he wanted was an out.

Struck with an idea, he stood up and began walking towards the dense part of the forest where he had emerged initially. However, when he reached the path, his heart sunk even further at the sight before him. The bodies of three people were laying across the entrance to the trail. As he rushed up to them, he discovered it was Remus, Tonks and Fred Weasley.

Fred, with his wand still gripped tightly in his hand, seemed to be locked in an animated sort of stasis. Under entirely different circumstances it might have been comical, as he was smiling his trademark goofy grin. However, even with Fred’s contentedly closed eyes, it did little to soothe the sick feeling Harry got at gazing down upon him.

As Harry turned his attention to Remus and Tonks, he noticed they were lying just out of arm’s reach of each other, the fingers of Tonks’ right hand splayed open and reaching for Remus’. However, it was clear that they perished before achieving that final consolation; their faces, still frozen in pain and desperation; their hands, mere inches apart. This nearly destroyed Harry – so much so that he had to turn abruptly and race back towards the center of the clearing again. He wedged his fingertips in behind his glasses in a vain attempt to press the tears out of his eyes – anything to get some distance. When his throat began constricting sharply, making breathing difficult, he stopped running. He knew it was only making the problem worse, but didn’t know how much more of this he could endure.

Just then, every hair on the back of his neck stood on end. Someone else was here. The presence was strong and familiar… and alive. Harry felt his heartbeat pound harder and all of his muscles tense. He moved his hands away from his eyes just as a silky voice cut through the silence.

“You are a fool, Harry Potter.”

Harry’s face drained of all its color but he did not turn around.

Out of nowhere, Voldemort’s pale, snake-like face appeared over Harry’s right shoulder, hovering near his ear. As Voldemort spoke again, now barely above a whisper, his voice sent chills down Harry’s spine.

“It is because of you that your poor, pathetic friends lie dead around you.”

Harry remained motionless for a moment, frozen in panic, Voldemort’s words heavy against his heart. The death of people he loved, particularly those fighting in his name, was a burden he steadfastly harbored; wore it like a scarlet letter, in fact. He lowered his head, resigning himself again to the inevitable truth. Then a light whooshing sound distracted him, and he turned his head to see the serene face of Albus Dumbledore come plainly into view.

Something in Harry’s heart leapt at the vision and he blinked several times to ensure it was real. The half-moon glasses, the twinkling blue eyes, the quirky, spangled robes: it was all exactly as he remembered it. Harry couldn’t seem to find his voice but felt a surge of safety and confidence return to his body at his old mentor’s presence.

At the arrival of their new guest, Voldemort turned and eyed Dumbledore carefully, an arrogant, smug expression on his face. He continued to stroll slowly, his wispy robes billowing ominously behind him, his bare feet starkly white against the dark green of the grass.

“Even your death was Harry’s fault,” he declared smoothly, his tone dripping with satisfaction.

“You’re wrong, Tom,” Dumbledore responded, his voice as calm and commanding as ever. “That was completely my doing… unfortunately,” he added thoughtfully.

Voldemort’s face wrinkled in disdain and he swept about with poorly-disguised agitation. Harry turned to watch the two of them just as Voldemort addressed him directly again, ignoring Dumbledore.

“How does it feel knowing all of these people died because of you, Harry?” Voldemort taunted, sweeping his arm in a wide gesture to indicate the whole clearing. “You were not able to save them!” Then he paused for a moment, sneering, and pointed his wand at the ground. Beneath the tip, a fragile, white, feathered body appeared. “Not even your pitiful owl.”

“Hedwig!” Harry cried out mournfully, kneeling down next to the motionless bird. He saw one wing was bent at an unnatural angle but tried to ignore it as he gently stroked the feathers on her face instead. His gaze snapped back up to Voldemort, now blazing with contempt and hatred, but still he felt crippled by the truth of Voldemort’s earlier words.

Then an Evochi-related question tumbled out of his mouth.

“Why aren’t you dead here, like the others?”

Voldemort let out a cold, mirthless laugh. “You didn’t kill me, Harry. You were never capable of killing me.”

“But you died, I saw it happen! Your curse rebounded…” Harry could hear the rising panic in his voice as a sliver of doubt fragmented his mind.

“You merely tricked me, Harry. One moment of boyish cleverness does not mean you defeated me.” He let out a bark of derisive laughter. “That would have taken considerable skill – skill which you do not possess. You always got by on luck, Harry, hiding behind wizards far greater than yourself; wizards who also saw fit to protect you, even from yourself.” At this, Voldemort shot an accusatory glare in Dumbledore’s direction.

Unperturbed by the obvious attempt to goad him, Dumbledore said nothing and merely looked back serenely, a small, resolute smile set on his lips. Apparently he saw no reason to justify himself or his actions to anyone, least of all to Voldemort.

Voldemort narrowed his eyes at Dumbledore but did not press further, then snapped his attention back to Harry, circling him slowly as though he were prey. Harry, now physically and emotionally drained, only stared vaguely in front of him. As Voldemort leaned down over Harry, he continued his verbal lambaste.

“Take a close look around you, Harry, for this is your past and your future. No matter what you do with your life, or how happy you try to become, I will always be there to destroy it for you. Or, if I am fortunate, you will do the work for me.”

Harry frowned miserably and put his face in his hands. He wasn’t sure he even had any fight left.

“Don’t you see? There is no hiding from this! It will follow you everywhere!”

Motion in front of him made Harry look up again, and when he did, he saw a small figure step behind Voldemort. Blinking to clear his eyes, Harry watched as the tiny fingers of a young child pulled back the robe by Voldemort’s leg and came fully into view. Voldemort’s mouth spread into a unsettling smile.

“It is time you meet your Godson, Harry.” As he spoke, the long, pale fingers of his left hand slowly caressed the top of the boy’s head. There was nothing sweet about it, though, only predatory.

Harry’s eyes widened as he took in the surprisingly familiar features of the future Teddy Lupin. He must have been about five years old. As Harry reached a hand out, he was crestfallen when Teddy’s face crumpled and the child turned away, tears beginning to fall down his cheeks. When he spoke, his voice was defiant and hurt.

“You killed my mommy and daddy!” Teddy wailed. It was the sorrow only an orphan could know. Utterly dismantled and defeated, Harry buckled onto the ground, half-choking on a sob that lodged in his throat.

Voldemort was having none of this, however. Immediately, he reached down and tightly wrapped his cold fingers around one of Harry’s ankles, yanking his leg out from under him, and began dragging his body across the grass.

In his panic and anger, Harry shouted at Voldemort while trying to wrestle his leg free.

“LET ME GO!”

But Voldemort was unrelenting and, for some reason, far stronger. In desperation, Harry flung his arms out above his head and made to grab at the grass or anything else he could find, trying to halt his progress across the clearing. Without looking, he knew where they were headed: the arch with the veil. Yet the harder he kicked his leg, the more viselike Voldemort’s grip became. Tears streamed down Harry’s cheeks as he yelled anything and everything, frustrated by being completely defenseless and the fact that no amount of further creation on his part seemed to change the events in this particular reality.

All of his struggling seemed for naught. Exhausted and riddled with fear, Harry finally gave in and let his body slacken, whimpering as the grass now chafed painfully against the bare skin of his chest where his shirt had pulled up.

As they neared the arch, though, something remarkable began to transpire: the grass beneath Harry started to transform. The sky darkened. In the distance, the periphery of the clearing slowly started to disappear. It took a few seconds but suddenly Harry’s mind became hyper-aware of the situation and he knew – or hoped – that what he was witnessing was the end of his session.

He had never known such relief.

Yet, it seemed to be fading slower than normal, and he was still being pulled insistently towards the arch. What would happen if he and Voldemort reached the veil before this reality dissolved?

Feeling a renewed sense of purpose and adrenaline flood him, Harry mustered a strength and endurance he didn’t even know he had and began grabbing at the ground anew, hoping if not to stop his motion then at least to delay it long enough. Voldemort seemed to sense this, too, and picked up his pace in response.

When they reached the arch, Voldemort didn’t waste a precious moment. Out in front of him, Harry saw that the scene was almost completely gone, once again resembling a darkened lab – except for the ground he was laying on and the arch behind him. With a victorious grin, Voldemort backed through the veil and pulled Harry with him.

Or tried to, anyway.

With sheer tenacity, Harry grabbed the sides of the archway as hard as he could, screaming as the rough-cut stones cut into the soft flesh of his hands, the lower trunk of his body dangerously close to passing through the veil. But he held on with everything he had – and not a second too long – for once Voldemort was claimed into the veil, the hold on his ankle released at the same time his hold slipped, and he collapsed onto the ground.

Underneath his throbbing fingers, the texture of the arch changed dramatically. What was once masonry became a warm fabric. Then, as the scene completely evaporated before him, he felt like he was slipping backwards into something. Afraid the veil was still trying to claim him, he reached his hands out to grab at the material before him, panic-stricken. Tears welled in his eyes.

The deep timbre of a man’s voice called out to him but he couldn’t place the words. He knew it wasn’t Voldemort, though, so he tried to move his mind towards it. The tone was soothing and familiar somehow, and he kept hearing the same words over and over, whatever they were. Through the haze of disorientation, Harry was able to make out the fabric in more detail and clung to it for dear life, ignoring the pain from the wounds on his hands as he held it forcefully.

Eventually he came to realize the voice and the fabric were connected. Then he registered something wrapped snugly around him and railed against it briefly for fear of being trapped again. But the more he struggled, the tighter it held to him and the more fervently the voice whispered in his ear.

That soothing voice. It was so familiar. Harry felt drawn to its safety and its… tenderness?

He opened his eyes but had to blink several times when his vision was met with dimly-lit surroundings. All at once his senses seemed assaulted with inputs but he couldn’t make sense of them right away. At first it was just the subtle rocking motion he felt – so slight as to almost go undetected. Next, it was the warmth and comfort against his body. Whatever was wrapped around him was solid and protective. Then, a beguiling scent. He relished it filling his nostrils and lungs. Lastly, the voice.

Wait, that was his name! He had heard his name.

Harry.

His mind was slowly coming back to him.

“Relax, Harry, you are safe…” the voice had whispered softly.

It was a person he was with, speaking to him. He was in someone’s embrace. Someone who knew him and cared for him. He could feel a chin resting on his head and warm breath rustling his hair as the words were spoken. But where was he and what had happened?

As the room around him started to come into focus and his eyes adjusted better, he willed himself to release his grip slightly in order to identify the person holding him. He was afraid of letting go completely and so moved slowly and cautiously. Leaning his head back, he saw the pale skin of a man with long curtains of shiny, ebony hair. His eyes, black as night, were all at once intense and vulnerable, and they were fixed upon Harry with deep concern. The face was as familiar as the voice, and it was then his mind seemed to slide back into place, recognition and benediction co-mingling.

All he could do is whisper, his voice hoarse as though from lack of use. “Severus…?”

SSHP-SSHP-SSHP

Upon hearing his name, Severus exhaled loudly and tightened his hold on Harry, trying desperately to keep from breaking down. He was okay! Something soared inside him, and without thinking, he leaned over, cradling Harry’s head underneath his chin.

Severus then shut his eyes tightly and lifted his face to the ceiling, sighing deeply. The slew of possible outcomes that had plagued him for the last hour started to fade into nothingness in his mind. In truth, there was only one outcome of them all that he could bear. He opened his eyes and looked down into Harry’s pools of emerald green.

This one.

Severus adjusted his arms so that he could run a hand over Harry’s forehead, smoothing the wayward hair out of his face that had been plastered there with sweat. As he did so, Harry’s eyes began to droop and his features relaxed, his head slumping into Severus’ shoulder and his grip loosened completely.

And just like that, he was out.

Harry’s body needed recuperating. It was an inevitability following any Evochi session. Severus expected it; planned for it, even. What he hadn’t anticipated, however, was having Harry end up in his lap barely half-way through the session, terrified and shivering, clinging to him so harshly that it had left bruises on Severus’ upper arms. All Severus could think to do was hold him for the remainder of the session, to keep him from hurting himself and hoping that on some level Harry knew he was there.

Severus looked down into Harry’s face, the dried tear tracks still visible on his cheeks, and remembered the awful sounds of torment and anguish that this session, whatever it was, had elicited from him. And how powerless Severus had been to stop it.

SSHP-SSHP-SSHP

Shifting Harry in his lap, Severus reached into his pocket and pulled out his wand. Without saying a word, he cast a quick charm to levitate Harry and then stood up, smoothing out his trousers and jumper as Harry floated mid-air in front of him. When his fingers grazed something sticky on his sleeve, he abruptly pulled his hand away to examine it, feeling his heart skip a beat. He quickly grabbed Harry’s wrists and rotated them to examine his palms.

The wounds covered the whole of Harry’s hands: the palm and most of the undersides of his fingers. The skin was heavily scuffed and cracked open, the blood still glistening. The breath seemed to escape Severus’ lungs in a rush as he rubbed his fingertips along the gashes. Confused and horrified, he immediately pressed the tip of his wand into each of Harry’s hands to staunch the flow of blood, repairing the lesions as best he could. Then he turned and sent his Patronus to Poppy with a message to come quickly, but discreetly.

Opening the door to the lab, he stepped into the antechamber and then flicked his wand to summon Harry, who silently drifted into the room after him. He was barely settled on the sofa when the quick snap of flames in the fireplace heralded the arrival of Madam Pomfrey.

SSHP-SSHP-SSHP

As Severus looked up at her, their eyes met, and in them, Poppy saw a tortured gaze staring back. Satisfied she would get her fill of answers later, she walked over to kneel down beside Harry and began to work post-haste, intuitively aware that Harry’s wounds were, for certain, the lesser of the two things in the room that needed healing.
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The Unexpected Side Effect of Draught No. 9