> Recent Entries
> Archive
> Friends
> User Info

August 22nd, 2010

08:12 pm - FIC: One Wave Short of a Shipwreck (1/2) Severus/Harry ~ NC-17 Title: One Wave Short of a Shipwreck (1/2) Author: Leela (leela_cat) Betas: batdina, meri_oddities, and the_flic Word Count: ~12,400 Rating: NC-17 Pairing: Harry/Severus Warnings: * EWE, Seduction through enticing alternatives (aka Dirty Talk), no underage sex * Disclaimer: Don't own them. Don't make any money from them. I just let them have a bit more fun than JKR ever did. Summary: Severus and Harry end up in the same hospital for very different reasons. Afterwards, Hermione plots, Harry seduces, and Severus thinks he may just be going slightly mad. A/N: Written for alisanne for the 2008 snarry_holidays and apparently never reposted. ~*~*~ I'm one card short of a full deck I'm not quite the shilling One wave short of a shipwreck I'm not at my usual top billing I'm coming down with a fever I'm really out to sea This kettle is boiling over I think I'm a banana tree Oh dear, I'm going slightly mad — I'm Going Slightly Mad by Queen ~*~*~ Part 1: Not at his usual top billing Three more days, Severus reminded himself. Only three more days and he would be released from this hellhole of a hospital. He'd survived more than five months of their so-called care — and he did not know the exact number of weeks, days, hours, he simply refused. Surely, he could survive another three days. A chill breeze blew through the tree above the bench where he sat, showering his black cloak with red and gold leaves. He shivered, yanked up the hood of his cloak, and slid a little lower on his seat. He was not ready to go back in and subject himself to more of their damn fussing. He settled his book a little more comfortably, moving the hard leather corner from where it was jabbing into his thigh. Carmeline's Prescriptive Potions had two advantages over the rest of the semi-acceptable reading material in the hospital library. It was two thousand pages long and, like almost every other potions book of its class, worth rereading. Mostly worth reading, he corrected himself, pulling a self-inking red quill from his pocket and jotting a correction in the margin. Only a dunderhead with a penchant for exploding cauldrons would recommend using a triple anti-clockwise figure-eight stir to combine those particular ingredients. "Leave me 'lone." The high-pitched yell almost made Severus lose his place. He snarled, "Shut it up or hex it." A young boy skidded to a halt in front of Severus, hospital dressing gown flying out behind him to reveal dark blue pyjamas decorated with airborne snitches and broomsticks. He glanced around the small garden and sighed, obviously intelligent enough to realise that the only way out was the way he'd entered. He peered through the over-long, uncombed mop of hair and whinged, "Bad man comes." "Indeed." Severus could have kicked himself for responding, but that would have hurt and... well, he had promised never to intentionally hurt himself again. Face solemn, green eyes wide with fear, the boy nodded. Severus looked down and turned the page in his book. It really wasn't any of his business, whatever it was. Two steps, slippers dragging on the flagstones, and a hand grabbed at Severus' knee. "Bad man." "As you've already said." Severus pried the small fingers off his cloak. "You may wish to run away before he finds you here." One step away, just one, and then the little horror threw himself at Severus, wrapping his arms around Severus' leg almost tightly enough to cut off circulation. And Severus had had enough of those problems over the past few months. He reached down to extricate himself from the parasite, only to have his hand grabbed in two clammy little ones and legs wrapped around his. The mucky pup even had the audacity to look at Severus with those unbearably green eyes as he cowered against him. Severus scowled and started to disentangle himself. From somewhere close by, a man yelled, "Boy! Come here. Now!" The child gasped and clutched Severus' hand, hard. A thrashing noise came from the other side of the hedge at Severus' left, followed by much stomping of feet. The same man growled, "Bloody brat. Just wait till I get my hands on him." The child whimpered and started to pull away, as if he didn't expect Severus to help. Something in that sound — perhaps the familiar, tangible, resigned fear — made Severus twitch his book to one side and open his cloak. He nodded at the child, who looked surprised as he obediently scrambled up and over Severus' lap with a whispered "thank you". "Hmmm," Severus murmured. He resettled himself, angling his body slightly sideways to provide a space only just large enough between his back and the bench for the boy. A flick of the thick wool sorted his cloak and brought it close against his body. The careful placement of his oversized book ensured that no one could tell he was trying to hide something. The small vibrations from the boy trembling against Severus' ribs had his nostrils flaring as he considered the not-necessarily-remote possibility that his robes would develop a damp patch. With a sigh, he went back to considering the utter idiocy of adding crushed camomile stamens to a Perspicacity Potion. Even Longbottom had known better than that. A couple of minutes later, an Auror stomped into the garden alcove and crashed around the hedges. Abrek Eydel, Severus snorted. He should have known. Incompetent cretin. Hopefully the man would get into more trouble over losing the child than he had for allowing another inmate to kill Lucius on his watch. "Snape." Eydel turned to go. Then he blew out his bushy, brown moustache and asked, "Have you seen a boy? About five years old. This high." He held his hand at hip height. Severus arched an eyebrow and did his best not to react to the little fingers digging painfully into his back. He moved his gaze up and down the Auror, taking in the smears of dirt on his dark robes and the leaf bits caught in the thinning brown hair. "Do I look like a babysitter to you?" "You don't want to know what you look like to me," Eydel sneered. Then he shook his head, muttering something that Severus couldn't hear. "If that's all," Severus said, ostentatiously lifting his book and running a finger down the page. He used the movement to disguise the shift of muscles that dislodged the fingertips poking into his ribs. "Well," Eydel began, then stopped to push a hand against the comm-bug in his ear. He murmured, "Fine" and then, "Coming." After a pause, he continued, "Snape, if you see a black haired, green eyed brat running around, trip the heads-up, and someone'll come and get him." After Eydel left, Severus sat there for a few minutes. Small arms slid around his back, and the trembling slowly eased. The boy whispered, "Thank you." "Hmmm..." Severus grunted. His mind was stuck on the description Eydel had given. Unfortunately, there was only one way to know for sure. Laying his book aside, Severus shifted forward and opened his cloak. The boy crawled out. Before he could slip down to the ground, Severus caught his arm. The chin lifted and the green eyes narrowed, squinting. "I won't tell. Promise." "I'm not worried about that." Severus raised his other hand, pushed the messy fringe back to expose the boy's forehead. A jagged lightening bolt scarred the pale skin. "Potter," he hissed. "Harry," the boy insisted. "Bloody hell," Severus swore and pinched the bridge of his nose. He really should have known. Who else... he cut off that train of thought and started cursing. Everything and everyone. Potter was watching him, awe-struck. "You know more bad words than Uncle Vernon." "I hardly consider that a feat. To call your uncle's vocabulary severely lacking would be an exaggeration." "What's a 'saggeration'?" "Never you mind." "But..." "Do you ever just listen?" Severus growled. But Potter cringed instead of fighting back, clearly expecting a wallop to follow those words, and Severus' frustration drained away. Determined to get to the bottom of whatever was disturbing his well-earned peace, he grabbed the child and his book, and stalked towards the hospital. And if the thin arms looped around his neck and the head tucked under his chin felt like a benediction, Severus would never tell anyone. Not even himself. ~*~*~ "Hermione and I looked after him the first time," Ron Weasley said, running a hand through his unkempt red hair. "We aren't allowed to look after him this time." "What do you mean, the first time?" Severus hissed. "Just what I said, Snape. We looked after Harry a couple of weeks ago. It was his suggestion that we de-age him again, so that we could catch whoever did it. We figure that's more likely to happen if he's in a public place." Severus snarled, "And you expect me to blithely sit in the middle of the trap, right next to the bait?" "Keep it down," Kingsley Shacklebolt murmured, and they glanced at the other side of Severus' hospital room, where Hermione was reading to Harry. The silhouettes of the two Aurors on guard outside loomed through the frosted glass inset into the door next to them. "This is ridiculous," Weasley said and cast Muffliato and another, unrecognisable spell that surrounded them with shimmering wards. "If this huddle hasn't given us away, then he or she isn't smart enough to figure out that a Silencing spell means we're hiding something." Severus crossed his arms over his chest and waited. This had better be good. After a significant look from Kingsley, Weasley continued, "Thing is, the de-aging curse hit Harry in the middle of training. Sixteen trainees, four Aurors doing the training, and all of us in a shielded building that no one can enter or leave until the end of session." "A locked room mystery, only nineteen suspects, and you can't identify the culprit?" Severus shook his head. "Maybe you all need to go back into training." "Now, Severus," Kingsley began, then he sighed and ran his hand across his smooth pate. "If we hadn't checked every wand, questioned everyone present — multiple times — under Veritaserum and Legilimency, I'd probably agree with you. But we did. And everyone present came up clean." "Which only proves that we didn't know the right questions to ask," Weasley grumbled. "Veritaserum is only going to tell us what the witness believes to be true, and every Auror is trained to Occlude." First baby Potter had told the truth, and now Weasley was speaking something that sounded like sense. Severus closed his eyes and firmly instructed his stomach that now was not the time to get sick. Not if he wanted out of this hell-hole sometime soon. "What I don't get," Weasley said, scratching at the back of his neck, "is how 'did you curse Harry Potter?' couldn't have been the right question to ask." Relief coursed through Severus and forced him to speak. "Thank you, Mr Weasley, for asking an utterly stupid question and proving, once again, that all is still right with the world." "Huh?" "Just ignore him, Ron, or he'll tangle you up in enough mental knots to keep you busy for the next hundred years." Kingsley frowned at Severus. "Now, where were we before you so adroitly sent us off on a tangent? Ah, yes, you were agreeing to take care of Harry until we can catch the suspect." "I.... agreed?" Severus' eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared. He reared himself up to his full height to give the conniving bastard a piece of his mind. The door opened, and two Aurors entered with a small bed and a bag of clothing floating behind them. Potter released a high-pitched squeal and raced through the supposedly impenetrable wards, scattering sparks in every direction, to clamp himself around Severus' leg. "I'm not exactly sure you were given a choice." Kingsley snorted. Severus bent down to disentangle his leg only to find that Potter had somehow managed to latch onto his arms. The child had more tentacles than the bloody Giant Squid. When Severus stood up again, with the insufferable brat in his arms, Weasley's face was bright-red. "You... he..." Weasley managed. But then Potter wriggled into what he apparently considered a more comfortable position, and Weasley completely lost it, laughing so hard that he was clutching his stomach. "And here I thought you'd forgiven me for being a spy during the war." Severus stared haughtily down his nose at Kingsley, trying not to think about what the grubby child attached to his neck was doing to his carefully cultivated image. Kingsley's booming laughter was not the least bit reassuring. ~*~*~ "An' they all lived happily ever after, the end," Potter announced, slamming Bayla Barnacle Goes to the Zoo closed and peering up through his fringe at Severus. "Is okay?" "Much better, Potter," Severus said. "Harry," the brat insisted, for the umpteenth time in two days. He held up the book. "Now it's your turn." Severus massaged the bridge of his nose against his incipient headache and tried to remember how many hours it had been since he took a potion to ward off the last headache. "I think not. It's time for bed." "But I'm in bed and you said I should read lots." "Do not twist my words," Severus gritted out. Snatching the book out of Harry's hands, he tossed it towards his own bed. It landed with a thud on the floor that sent a matching throb through Severus' skull. "Not if you know what's good for you." "Sorry," Harry whispered and curled up tightly against the head of his bed, as far away from Severus as he could manage. Then he held out his hands, palms up. "You want for me to count?" "No!" The bottom dropped out of Severus' stomach. He flung himself out of his chair and over to the window. Clenching his fist on the windowsill did not quell his urge to destroy, to rend something. He rested his forehead against the cool glass, closed his burning eyes, and tried to get his thoughts in order. But all he could think was not Potter, too. Potter was supposed to be the Golden Boy, not another child who suffered simply because he existed. If Albus was still alive, Severus would gladly kill the man again. He groaned, and then groaned again when Potter whimpered. Before he could do anything, say anything, a woman came barrelling into the room, a tray piled with scrolls and potions floating behind her. "Well, hello there," she said, in a nauseatingly chirpy voice. "I'm Mediwitch Belthorne. How're we doing this evening?" Severus spun around, smirk fixed firmly in place, and responded. "We were doing just fine until you came in. Weren't we, Harry?" "Uh huh." Potter nodded so hard that Severus' headache started up once more in sympathy. "Lovely. Lovely. Now let's get started, shall we?" The self-satisfied pat she gave her sloppy bun set her cap askew, but she didn't seem to notice. That, combined with her obnoxiously toothy smile and distinct lack of stress lines, had Severus making sure his wand was in its holster. He would have bet the meagre contents of his vault that the woman wasn't a mediwitch. Potter, apparently being more intelligent than he looked, scrambled off the bed and hid behind Severus — without exhibiting any of his usual clinginess or tendency to get in Severus' way. The woman pulled a pair of potion phials out of her pocket, rather than off the tray, and Severus pulled out his wand. She looked at him and blinked. "Oh," she said, and then patted her pockets. "I must have..." As she ran for the door, the tray clattered to the floor behind her, sending scrolls and phials in every direction. By the time Severus made it to the corridor, she was nowhere to be seen. Dawlish and Rajagopalan, a brown-haired female Auror, stared at him for a moment before taking off after the woman. "Sev'rus?" Potter was still standing near the window, chewing on his bottom lip. Severus crossed the room and picked him up. Wrapping his arms around Potter, he settled back into the chair between the two beds and did his best to comfort them both. ~*~*~ Two hours later, Severus was still sitting in the chair with Potter sound asleep in his lap. His memory of the event currently resided in a Pensieve on his bedside table, and he'd answered innumerable questions from Dawlish, Rajagopalan, and Weasley about what had happened. Shacklebolt stared at the snapshot of the woman taken from Severus' memory and shook his head. "She looks familiar, but I just can't place her." "Know what you mean," Weasley said. "Can't say as I've ever met her, but I've seen her around somewhere." "Could she work at the Ministry?" Rajagopalan asked. "It's possible." Dawlish shrugged. "But, if she does, circulating the picture might just tip her off. Assuming, of course, that we're not looking at a case of Polyjuice." Severus sneered at them. "If I repeat myself again, will you be able to get the information into your thick head? She exhibited none of the physical awkwardness that typifies someone who has Polyjuiced into another body. And that means it was the woman herself, unless whoever it was makes a habit of Polyjuicing into the same woman over and over again." With a mulish thrust of his chin that exposed the bald spot under his comb-over, Dawlish protested, "You can't know for..." Cutting across whatever the imbecile was going to say, Severus said, "I am a Potions Master. It is my job to know everything about Polyjuice potion." "He's got a point," Weasley said, then he grimaced and whinged, "and you have no idea how much it hurts me to agree with him." Oh, but I do, Severus thought. He arched an eyebrow at Weasley, permitting his lips to twitch into his favourite almost-smile when the man flushed nearly as red as his hair. "We've gone around in so many circles that I'm getting dizzy. While I agree that our suspect was unlikely to be Polyjuiced," Shacklebolt held up his hand to stop Dawlish from objecting, "even that possibility, however remote, requires regular access to the subject to obtain hair. Now, can we please move on to actually finding her?" As they discussed strategies and ideas, Severus adjusted Potter and cautiously flexed his arm, trying to get some feeling back into it. How the boy slept through all of this upheaval was beyond him. He gave them another hour. Then, he kicked them out of the room and told them not to allow anyone in until the house-elf came with breakfast. He tucked Potter into his bed, pausing briefly when the boy rolled over with a murmured complaint. After setting his own wards within wards around the perimeter of the room and around their beds, he readied himself for bed. What he really wanted, instead of sleep, was a decent Keep Awake potion. But Healer Delyannis had vetoed that proposal with a graphic description of how it interacted with his other potions. Bloody overgrown worm. If Longbottom hadn't killed it, Severus would have taken great pleasure — and spent far more time — doing it himself. As for protecting Potter, that had always been Severus' job. He clearly couldn't trust the Aurors to find the noses on their own faces. ~*~*~ Over the next few days, Severus adamantly refused to allow Potter to go anywhere without him. Not even the nauseatingly hopeful looks that the miniature delinquent kept giving him through that dratted hair were enough to change his mind. Each night, after the Aurors — bloody useless imbeciles that they were — had swept the room for Portkeys, hexes, and other traps, Severus ushered them out and set his own wards and traps. Other than the usual annoyances of being responsible for a five year old Gryffindor with marginal taste in family and friends, nothing happened. He'd made more than his fair share of mistakes, losing his temper far too many times and, worst of all, discovering that Potter's interpretation of Severus' offer to give him lessons had nothing to do with reading or writing. If he were being honest, which he wasn't, Severus would have admitted that he was bored out of his skull and back to being desperate to get out of the hospital. But his release had been delayed until the "situation" with Potter had been resolved. And he had been expressly forbidden from taking the brat with him. By the fourth day, they'd fallen into a routine of sorts. Potter woke him up with a disgustingly cheery and shy smile. He sent Potter back into the bathroom three times: once to wash behind his ears, a second time to comb his hair, and a final time to brush more than just his front teeth. The house-elf popped in, blithely ignoring the Aurors outside the room and the wards inside, bringing the exact same breakfast that Severus had eaten since he'd demanded they allow him solid foods: a soft-boiled egg, four slices of wholemeal toast with butter and silver marmalade on the side, a cup of plain Greek yoghurt, a large pot of tea (hospital coffee being poisonous to anyone with functioning taste buds), and The Daily Prophet. He was deeply involved in spreading the silver marmalade to the edges of his first slice of toast when Pott... Harry stopped slicing his toast into meticulously even soldiers — and one day Severus would know why the little horror hadn't used that skill to prepare potions ingredients — and asked the question that changed everything. "Did they catch the bad man?" "What?" "The bad man," P... Harry repeated with a completely unnecessary sigh. "Ron said I had to stay until they got him and that lady in 'skaban. So, can we go home yet?" "If the Aurors had caught them, do you imagine we'd still be here?" Severus folded the gossip rag in thirds and laid it out on the table for easier reading. "Then we got to catch them." "We?" "Uh huh." "And how do you propose we do that?" Harry bounced a little in his chair as he ate, smearing strawberry jam on his cheek. He chewed and swallowed, then said, "Like before only better. I run. And you hide. And he chases. And then you catches them. And then they go to 'skaban and we go home and... The End." Severus narrowed his eyes and wondered, not for the first time, how much of the teenager was left in the five year old. Because the real problem was that it wasn't a truly horrendous plan, even if it called for using a child as bait. Then he really started thinking. Maybe he should fake a relapse. Just a little one. Enough to convince the unknown miscreants that Harry wasn't all that well-defended... A hand tugged on his sleeve. Severus directed a glare in the approximate direction of the interruption. "Sev'rus?" Harry sounded desperate. "Mmmmm?" He'd need someone else as back-up, just in case. Perhaps Weasley could bring that damnable Invisibility Cloak. Another tug at his sleeve. This time he actually looked at Harry, at the way he was crossing his legs and just about jumping up and down, and arched an eyebrow in inquiry. "Need to go wee-wee." "So go." Nobody else could know what was going on though, because there was the matter of trust... This time, the brat caught Severus' finger and almost made him spill his tea. "But you said to ask you and to not break the curtain again." "The curtain...?" Severus glanced over at the bathroom and sighed when he saw the tell-tale shimmer. He lifted his wand off the table and disabled the wards. "Well, go on." Hand between his legs, Harry ran. ~*~*~ Severus settled himself gingerly into the garden chair. He didn't know how hypochondriacs managed it. Feigning illness was almost as aggravating as actually being an invalid, and this damned chair was just another reminder that he couldn't get up and give the thing the kick it deserved. The cushions didn't support, they yielded. Sucked you in and trapped you like those malevolent armchairs in Albus' office. All he needed now was for the old biddy to trundle past with her tea cart and offer him one of those vile lemon drops. Merlin help them if he had to get up in a hurry. "Sev'rus! Want to watch me play 'scotch?" Harry stood at one end of the column of squares that he'd chalked onto the path. He hopped on one leg, clutching a pebble. The squares, surprisingly enough, were straight-edged and almost even. Only the occasional blurry spot identified the places where Harry had rubbed out a line and redrawn it. No numbers, but perhaps five was a little young for that. Still another lesson wouldn't go amiss. "Sev'rus!" Severus made a grand, sweeping gesture that was the best imitation of a bow he could manage sitting down. "Your audience awaits, milord." Giggling, Harry tossed his stone. He hopped, skipped, and jumped to the square where the pebble had landed. Several wobbly tries later, he was flat on his bum, holding the pebble in an upraised fist. He crowed, "I got it!" "You most certainly did." "Again?" "But of course," Severus said, wondering when he had so completely lost his mind as to find this inane game amusing. Luckily, Harry got tired of playing hopscotch at about the same time that Severus was ready to wring his scrawny little neck. Harry hunkered down, concentrating, the pink tip of his tongue peeking out of his mouth, and drew chalk pictures on the path. Severus pretended to nap, while inspecting everyone who tripped his perimeter spells. He was reasonably sure that Weasley was keeping watch from under the tree on the other side of Harry. At least that had been the arrangement. Severus had received no sign that the man was actually there, which, now that he thought of it, wasn't the brightest part of the plan. A veritable herd of patients, two tittering mediwitches, four arguing healers, and one too many addlepated Aurors later, things started to get interesting. "Here kitty," Harry called out in a stage whisper. A few apparently unsuccessful calls later, he looked over at Severus. Eyes open just a slit, Severus moved his hand — the signal that he should stay there and not take the bait. Unfortunately, Severus had forgotten to take into account the fact that he was dealing with Harry Potter, the boy who turned disobedience into an art form. And so, as Severus sat there, pretending to be asleep, the insubordinate whelp took off after the cat. Honestly, had no one ever taught this child not to take sweets from strangers? At that thought, Severus shook himself. Given what he'd seen over the past few days, his family had probably told him to accept anything offered — in the hopes that the boy would up and disappear. Waiting for sufficient time to pass before following was difficult, to say the least. The brush of a hand across his knee — indicating that Weasley was on the move — didn't provide much in the way of reassurance. But eventually, after thirty seconds or so, Severus cast Silencio on his feet and then a Disillusionment Charm that sent an unwelcome shiver down his spine. Only then did he go after Harry. Weasley's trail was almost inspired. The flower petals and fallen leaves were in the right direction to have been blown by the wind and just infrequent enough to appear random. And they led directly to the small, out-of-the-way rose garden where Harry was on his hands and knees next to the cat. Too bloody predictable for words, and confirmation that they were dealing with an amateur, despite the location of the original attack. No professional would have chosen a place with only one exit. Taking up a position that forced anyone leaving the garden to go past him, Severus watched. As Harry giggled, petted, and played with it, the cat rolled over and batted at his hands and kept the boy moving towards a gazebo near the back of the garden. Which, as far as Severus was concerned, removed any doubts as to whether or not the cat was an Animagus. A rustle across the entrance alerted him to Weasley's location. Too loud, but what more could he expect from a half-trained Gryffindor idiot. At least the cat didn't seem to have noticed. Making his own, much quieter and more realistic movement of branches, Severus padded silently towards their target. Only a few feet from the boy, Severus knew he'd made a mistake. Whiskers and nose twitching, the cat jumped onto Harry's chest, knocking him off-balance, and transformed into the pseudo-mediwitch. "He's mine. I won't let you take him from me again," she hissed and grabbed Harry, using his body to shield herself. He struggled, but she whispered something in his ear, and he fell still. "Show yourself." Severus remained still and hoped that Weasley would do the same. "Did you think I wouldn't notice the foul stench of sickness and potions and Death Eaters? Show yourself." Her eyes darted around the garden as she slowly moved backwards, towards the gazebo. Four or five feet away, Harry kicked her in the shin and made another bid for freedom. This time, she pulled her wand. "You were never such a bad boy before, lovey. Mummy will have to punish you if you can't behave yourself." Utterly insane, Severus thought and swallowed the bile that rose up into his throat. His knuckles whitened as he tightened his grip on his own wand. She glanced back and then crooned to Harry, "Just a few more steps and then Mummy will take you home. We'll have all your favourites for tea. Toasted cheese and tomato sandwiches, with treacle tart and cream for afters. Have to celebrate our little boy coming home, don't we?" What was it about the gazebo? It was within the anti-Apparition wards. He stepped sideways, looked past her. A table, some chairs, and a small flowerpot. Portkey, his mind supplied, and he was too far away to disable the damned thing. Merlin's banished left bollock. Swiftly but cautiously, Severus began moving in an arc that would intersect with her path at the entrance to the gazebo. He was almost far enough around to hex her without endangering Harry when Weasley — the gormless twit — tripped and fell, half-losing the Invisibility Cloak in the process. "Well, well, well, what do we have here," the madwoman said, moving her wand to cover Weasley. "You're not who I expected." She narrowed her eyes and tightened her grip on Harry. "Where's the other one?" Weasley struggled with the Cloak, but finally extricated himself. "Don't know who you mean." "Just another liar, aren't you?" "I don't lie," Weasley huffed. "You can ask anyone." "Everyone lies sometimes. You're old enough to know that by now." She waved her wand. "Don't force me to hurt you. Tell me where he is." Knowing that he had to trust in Weasley's ability to distract her, Severus stopped listening to the conversation and took a step forward. When she didn't react, he took another step. Although Severus was sure his Silencing Charm was still working, Harry's gaze slid to the side. Severus' heart thudded. One beat. Two. Then Harry started darting glances all around the garden. As if he were trying to find Severus. "Don't you dare!" Her cry rent the air and caught Severus' attention. Weasley was standing there, arms held out parallel to the ground, wand out. The woman whirled around, still clutching Harry, and ran. Dropping his Disillusionment spell, Severus aimed at her and cast Stupefy. Not waiting to see if his spell hit, he dove for Harry. "Confringo! Petrificus Totalus!" Weasley called out from behind Severus. The flowerpot shattered. Shards blasted out in all directions. Severus rolled with Harry in his arms, his body curving protectively around the smaller one. Small objects thudded into his back, sliced across his neck and scalp. "Snape. I've got her." Weasley's voice broke the silence. "You and Harry okay?" Straightening out and sitting up was far more painful than Severus anticipated. More than one groan escaped him before he was able to clamp down. He gritted out, "Never been better, can't you tell?" You bloody nincompoop. Harry wriggled around until he was ensconced in Severus' lap. Small hands patted over Severus' face and neck, then Harry murmured, "Oh no." "You all right there, mate... umm... Harry?" Weasley finished binding the woman and came over to kneel in front of them. Holding out his hands, blood visible on them, Harry said, "Sev'rus hurt." And then everything didn't just ache. It stung and throbbed and, if asked, Severus might even have admitted that he was in agony. A very welcome distraction came right on the heels of John Dawlish as he and his Aurors thudded down the path, around the corner, and into the garden. They split up almost immediately. One of them went off in search of a healer. Dawlish came right over to the three of them. Rajagopal and Eydel headed over to take charge of the prisoner. Severus was busy waving off Dawlish and Weasley's unwelcome attempts to examine his injuries and take Harry away, when a moan had everyone turning their heads. On his knees next to the bound woman, Eydel moaned again. "Oh, Emily, no." "We caughted the bad man," Harry announced, green eyes shining as he tugged on Severus' robe. "We go home when you all better?" ~*~*~ Continue on to Part 2. Current Mood: accomplished Tags: fanfic, hp, severus/harry

(Leave a comment)