Into the Fold, Chapter Thirty-four
Title: Into the Fold
Author: Pasi
Rating: 15
Category: Gen
Fic Summary: Severus Snape is going straight to hell. The people he calls his friends are helping him get there.
Chapter Summary: Severus and Healer Meed discover Sectumsempra's counter-curse.
Chapter Index
The Knitting-Up Spell
June 1976
Healer Meed had wiped her phial clean of Severus's emotions with one flick of her wand. Their writhing continued unabated in his heart.
Potter was helpless, near death. Yet Severus still hated him, surely as much as he'd hated him when Potter had been whole, the powerful and graceful Quidditch hero soaring high above the pitch. It was precisely that hatred which had created Sectumsempra. Watching it play out beneath Healer Meed's Veil of Tears, feeling it anew, had only reminded Severus of how richly Potter had deserved everything he'd got.
That hatred couldn't be the path to Sectumsempra's counter. It wasn't the way to save Potter, or himself.
His only hope was Healer Meed. "You are the essential one," she had said, but he'd never really believed that. He hadn't believed it when she'd said it yesterday and, turning from the St Mungo's lobby into the corridor to her office, he didn't believe it today.
He knocked on the office door, and softly it swept open. Healer Meed sat at her desk, bent over a parchment, a steaming mug of tea at hand.
"Come in." The parchment rolled itself up and a black ribbon snaked into a neat bow around it. "Administrative annoyances. As if I didn't have better things to do." She looked irritably at the parchment, and it flew to a cubbyhole in a towering shelf against the wall. Severus entered the office and stole a glance at the Pensieve. It sat on its recessed counter, topped by its customary white cloud.
"Sit down," said Healer Meed, and he did. "How do you feel this morning?"
Calm, Severus suddenly realised. Perhaps his time with Healer Meed had been an emotional bloodletting: an overabundance of feeling had been drained, so that, although his emotions hadn't changed, they were reduced to the point that he could control them.
"Fine," he said and almost meant it.
"Good, because it's time to get to work." She stood. "First we'll visit James Potter."
Severus swallowed. Healer Meed looked at him sternly, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking.
"Yes. You'll get to see your handiwork. It won't be pretty, I'm afraid. The effectiveness of the Blood-Replenisher is wearing off. Come along."
They left her office and entered the lift. At the fourth floor, they emerged to a host of Healers swarming around a massive desk. A sign on the opposite wall said The Inigo Braithwaite Acute Spell Damage Ward. Speaking to no one, Healer Meed took Severus's hand. He felt his stomach flip sickeningly as, turning at an odd angle away from the desk, she led him to the end of a silent corridor.
Severus rubbed his nauseous stomach and gulped. Giving him a sympathetic look, Healer Meed released his hand.
"I'm sorry I upset your stomach, but I really didn't want all those people seeing us. It's quite irregular, after all, for someone who hasn't even left Hogwarts to be treating a St Mungo's patient."
Treating a patient? Severus felt even less capable when Healer Meed put it like that. "You mean Pott--I mean, James, is in here somewhere?"
Without answering, Healer Meed drew her wand and pointed toward the wall. A door appeared, to which was affixed a large red-lettered sign:
ISOLATION
Positively No Unauthorised Admittance
For further information or to obtain clearances,
please see the Healer-in-Charge.
"Isolation," said Severus nervously. "Isn't that for people who have dragon pox or something?"
"Ordinarily, yes. I just wanted to frighten off anybody who might have worked out my concealing magic and discovered this room."
"Concealing magic," said Severus. "Those people at the desk had no idea we were there, did they?"
"No, they didn't." Healer Meed smiled. "I confess I rather pride myself on my skill at Disillusionment. That was a fairly advanced charm I cast on us when I took your hand. I've yet to meet the witch or wizard who could pierce it." She looked around the corridor with satisfaction. "Further, I've wedged this place into my own bit of reality. Healer Wort--the Healer-in-Charge of Acute Spell Damage--is the only person besides you and my house-elf whom I've allowed to perceive this hallway and the Isolation Room. She knows the room holds a patient, but she doesn't know who the patient is. She can't get into the room except in an emergency, and then only if I can't be reached. Happily, I've always managed to be reached." Her smile faded. "As there have been emergencies in the past few days."
Uneasiness replaced Severus's pleasure at being included in Healer Meed's secret. "Emergencies?"
"Twice James has stopped breathing. He's getting closer to death. He needs our help more than ever." She turned to the door of the Isolation Room and touched it with her wand. The door opened and they entered.
Although lit by candles and overheated by a roaring fire, the Isolation Room struck Severus as gloomy and dim. He avoided looking at the bed in the corner and the heavily-blanketed form lying upon it, but he had already glimpsed Potter's shock of unruly hair, black against the white pillowcase. The house-elf, dabbing at Potter's face with a wet cloth, turned toward them when Healer Meed closed the door. Severus fastened his attention on the elf.
"How is our patient, Dilsey?" asked Healer Meed.
Sighing gustily, Dilsey dropped her cloth into the basin beside Potter's bed. She looked sharply at Severus. "Oh, Healer Meed, ma'am, James Potter is murdered! Murdered! The Dark wizard's horrid cut is bleeding and James Potter won't open his throat for Dilsey's potions!" She jabbed a bony finger at Severus. "And all because of that wicked Dark wizard, that awful boy!"
Healer Meed went to Potter's bedside and looked beneath his blankets. Her face went still. "Bring me more Blood-Replenisher."
"Dilsey will bring. Not that it will do any good." The house-elf trotted to a cauldron sitting on the hob and ladled potion into a cup. Both cauldron and cup steamed, sending a coppery odour into the air.
Dilsey carried the potion to Potter's bedside and handed it to Healer Meed. Healer Meed touched Potter's throat with the tip of her wand, then with a sure and gentle touch lifted Potter to a sitting position and poured the potion down his throat.
Potter's mouth fell open when Healer Meed tilted his head back, but he never so much as flickered an eyelid. As the bedclothes fell away from his chest, Severus saw a bloodstain spreading slowly on his nightshirt.
Healer Meed carefully, almost tenderly lay Potter upon his pillow. Then she stepped back and surveyed him with a frown.
Severus had hung back, standing just inside the door even after Healer Meed had approached Potter's bedside. He remained there now, watching the whey-faced Potter, the sombre Healer Meed, the house-elf muttering and wringing her hands.
"What are you waiting for?" said Healer Meed. "Come over here."
"Yes, Dark Wizard, sir! Come over here and just try to finish your job, just try to murder James Potter, and Dilsey will--"
Severus clamped his teeth together. Even out cold, an inert lump, Potter won worshippers.
"Thank you, Dilsey," said Healer Meed. "Take the rest of the afternoon off, why don't you; when was the last time you visited your sister?"
"Dilsey doesn't want to visit her sister; Holly gives Dilsey nothing but cold tea and hard buns. Besides, James Potter needs Dilsey's protection from--"
"Severus and I will take care of James. He's quite safe with us. Now please go."
Dilsey looked doubtful. "Well, as long as Healer Meed--"
Healer Meed pointed inexorably at the door. With more muttering and a final, baleful glance at Severus, the house-elf reluctantly left.
"She's very conscientious," Healer Meed sighed after the door closed. "Sometimes too conscientious."
She looked down at Potter and frowned again. Severus looked at him too. Candle-light flickered across Potter's face. The light was weak, like starlight reflected off water. It did nothing to add colour to his cheeks.
Healer Meed folded Potter's sheet and blanket down just below his chest. A bright thread of blood broke away from the splotch on his nightshirt and crept slowly over his breastbone. Healer Meed lay her hand on Potter's forehead, then moved it to Potter's chest, above his heart. Her frown deepened. When she lifted her hand, Severus saw a smudge of blood on her palm.
"This isn't good," she said softly. "This isn't good at all."
"What's wrong?" said Severus.
She looked at him thoughtfully. "I don't know that it's wrong. Perhaps it's exactly right. It's bad for James, however, in that he's so far gone that if he should stop breathing, I won't be able to revive him. Keeping him alive will be up to you."
Severus stared at her. Up to him? He didn't know anything about keeping people alive!
Healer Meed folded Potter's bedding down to his waist. "Help me take his nightshirt off."
Severus was damned if he was going to fool around with Potter's clothing. He slid his hands gingerly beneath Potter's shoulders, then further under his armpits and lifted.
It was like lifting a corpse. Potter's head lolled back, then forward. His body was heavy and limp. If it hadn't been for the feverish heat radiating outward from Potter's skin, through his nightshirt, Severus would have believed him dead.
With sure-handed ease, Healer Meed pulled Potter's nightshirt over his head. Now there was no protective cloth between Potter's furnace-hot body and Severus's bare hands. He lowered Potter as quickly as he dared and pulled his hands away. Staring at his palms, he was surprised to see that they weren't burned.
Healer Meed was gazing down at Potter's exposed torso. Reluctantly Severus looked too.
He hadn't forgotten what Potter's Sectumsempra wound looked like--indeed, the memory of the entire night was seared into his mind. And the chilling thing, he realised as he stared, was that since that night Potter's cut hadn't changed at all. It was the same length, from his neck nearly to his groin, exposing the same depth of skin, fat and gleaming muscle. Blood oozed ceaselessly, trickling from the lip of the wound over Potter's chest and belly, leaving a lurid trail across his skin.
Healer Meed, her face pale, her eyes fearful, pointed at Sectumsempra's cut with her wand. "I can do no more for him. It is time for you to mend him, and you don't have much time. If he lasts into tomorrow...." She faltered. "If he lives till then, I shall be very much surprised."
Potter to die before tomorrow? Severus had spent five days between the two of them, Dumbledore and Meed (and he'd call her Meed if he wanted to, Dumbledore wasn't here to stop him), and he still didn't know how to save Potter; they hadn't taught him a damned thing! "What am I supposed to do?" he demanded.
She met his eyes. Through several moments of silence, Severus felt her moving gently in his mind.
"You don't hate him as you did. We managed that with the Veil. So your emotion's not standing in your way."
"That still doesn't tell me what to do!"
"No...." Healer Meed considered her wand. "It will require some reasonably complicated wand work."
"Like what?"
Healer Meed shrugged. "I don't know."
How the hell was he supposed to know, then? "What about the incantation? How does that go?"
"I couldn't begin to tell you."
Severus's despair must have shown on his face, for Healer Meed's brow furrowed with pity. "I'm sorry. But I did tell you that you would have to be the one to heal James Potter. I'm sure Professor Dumbledore told you the same."
Severus nodded dumbly. Healer Meed was right about one thing: at that moment he couldn't hate Potter. Hatred couldn't compare, couldn't even exist alongside the sheer terror that Potter might die.
And he would do it before Severus's eyes. The first death Severus would see would be that of someone he had killed.
James Potter is murdered! Murdered!...all because of that Dark wizard, that awful boy!
God, no. He willed Potter to life, and not because he wanted to stay in school or out of Azkaban, but because he didn't want Potter to die. He didn't want to be a murderer.
He took out his wand and adopted the attitude of a wizard about to cast a spell--wand extended, back straight, feet planted firmly apart. He cudgelled his brain for the right wand movements, the perfect incantation. Nothing came. He lowered his wand and stared at Potter, looking for some scrap of inspiration. Again, nothing. Near death, Potter obstructed him, just as he'd done in life.
But there was no help anywhere else. Severus had nowhere else to look. So he stared at Potter, watched Potter's only movement, the rise and fall of his chest. It didn't rise much. And as Severus watched, it jerked a couple of times and stopped.
Potter was no longer breathing.
Severus froze, rooted to the spot. He looked at Healer Meed--she was a Healer, she'd do something--but Healer Meed didn't move.
"I told you. I can do nothing for him." Healer Meed's voice quavered and her eyes shone with tears.
Severus turned back to Potter, his mind blank with panic. A bluish hue had appeared around Potter's lips. Severus raised his wand higher. No incantation came, no graceful and complex wand movements occurred to him. He had nothing but his fear.
If only he could reverse everything that had happened, everything he had done. If only he could knit together the tear he had made; if only he could restart the breathing he had stopped.
And then he heard music.
It wasn't in the room. There was nothing in that close, bare space that could make music. Even though he had seen her with nothing that could have produced that soft, stringed melody, he looked at Healer Meed. But she was making no music. Her head bowed in her hand, she didn't even seem to hear it.
Severus looked back at Potter. He still had no idea where the music came from, yet his ears were filled with the longing sound, that made him yearn for the magic that made the music, that made him want more than anything to be in the place where that music lived.
But he couldn't go there yet; not with Potter here, dead if he didn't do something. He could only hope that the door to that place would remain open long enough, that the magic flowing through it would be magic he could use to heal Potter.
He stared at his wand. What should he do with it? An instinct told him to place it on Potter's abdomen, near his groin, at the nether end of his Sectumsempra wound.
The music filled Severus's mind. Magic washed through him. He felt lifted, carried to the brink of something, somewhere that brought tears to his eyes. He blinked them away, until Potter's body came clear again.
Then words filtered into his mind. They were his words, he made them. He didn't receive them, as he received the magic and the music. So they didn't say very well what he wanted them to say, just as his voice didn't properly convey the music he heard in his mind. But for once he didn't care. He didn't measure up, although he was doing the best he could, but for once, it didn't matter. He simply sang.
"Slicing sinew, breaking bone,
Blood aflow with heartfelt groan.
With all the cutting curse devise,
To mend again, you must be wise.
Take the thread of life in hand.
Warp and weft you must command.
Sing weave, weave, out of your soul,
And knit the shredded body whole."
Severus traced Potter's wound with his wand. Its bloody lips closed into a line of pink, freshly-knitted flesh.
Severus heard a gasp behind him: Healer Meed. His heart leapt into his throat. He was healing Potter. He had found the counter-curse to Sectumsempra. The charm spun out from his wand, the Knitting-Up Spell, Textum.
With a harsh intake of breath, Potter's chest moved. Severus's wand travelled over the hill and vale of his breathing, knitting the cut over his stomach, his chest, his jaw. Colour rose to Potter's cheeks, pink displacing the grey. He gave a deep sigh, as if of relief, when Severus knitted up the last of his wound.
The music stopped. The door closed, the magic ended. Potter lay quietly, breathing evenly, looking peacefully asleep. Severus's hands were as close to him as they'd been before, but he no longer felt heat blasting from Potter's body.
Severus stared at him. He didn't feel triumph at his magical accomplishment. He didn't feel relief at escaping expulsion from Hogwarts and imprisonment in Azkaban. He felt numb, empty. He wanted that door with the magic behind it to open again, but he knew it wouldn't. There was no longer any need.
"Severus," said Healer Meed, and he looked up. Her eyes were shining, so that their many hues of grey looked like the facets of a jewel.
She approached Potter and touched his forehead. "His fever's gone. The Dark magic has left his body." Her fingers brushed the thin pink scar on Potter's torso that was all that was left of Sectumsempra, following the path that Severus's wand had taken. Her eyes widened.
"This scar--why, it's nothing but a line on top of his skin. Dittany three times a day for two weeks and I can erase it. The curse wound is completely healed." She looked at Severus. "You did it."
Severus looked back at her, and finally relief crept into his heart. "You'll tell Dumbledore?"
She picked up Potter's nightshirt, Vanished the bloodstain from its front, and they helped Potter back into it. Again Potter's eyelids didn't so much as flutter. He felt lighter, though. Less like a corpse.
They laid Potter back down and Healer Meed pulled the blankets up to his chin. "The moment James regains consciousness, Professor Dumbledore wants to know."
"When will that be?"
"Tomorrow morning, at the latest. Probably earlier."
Severus looked away. Suppose he had failed? Would she have delayed to tell Dumbledore that?
"We shan't be certain that James is cured until he wakes up and speaks. When that happens, Professor Dumbledore will return to St Mungo's. He wants to talk to both of you."
"Together?"
"Together."
Severus decided he could wait until Potter regained consciousness.
"But he will wake up, Severus. He's cured. I'm certain of it." Healer Meed smiled and touched Severus's arm. "And don't worry. Professor Dumbledore will be very proud of you when he hears what you've done." She looked at the ceiling. In a moment the air before her popped with Dilsey's Apparition.
"Good news, Dilsey. Severus has healed James, and I expect him to make a full recovery. I'd like you to begin a regimen of dittany, three times a day, applied to his scar. And the instant he wakes up, let me know."
Dilsey didn't answer. From the moment Healer Meed had said the words "healed James", she'd been gaping at Severus.
Severus gestured irritably at Potter. "If you don't believe her, look for yourself."
Dilsey gave Potter a cursory glance, then resumed her round-eyed staring at Severus. "Of course I believe Mistress Healer Meed. It is just that...well...you are a surprising person, Severus Snape, sir."
Healer Meed laughed. "Yes, he certainly is that." She took Severus's arm. "Come on, Severus. Let me buy you dinner at the Leaky Cauldron. We'll call Professor Dumbledore from there and give him the good news together."
Author: Pasi
Rating: 15
Category: Gen
Fic Summary: Severus Snape is going straight to hell. The people he calls his friends are helping him get there.
Chapter Summary: Severus and Healer Meed discover Sectumsempra's counter-curse.
Chapter Index
The Knitting-Up Spell
June 1976
Healer Meed had wiped her phial clean of Severus's emotions with one flick of her wand. Their writhing continued unabated in his heart.
Potter was helpless, near death. Yet Severus still hated him, surely as much as he'd hated him when Potter had been whole, the powerful and graceful Quidditch hero soaring high above the pitch. It was precisely that hatred which had created Sectumsempra. Watching it play out beneath Healer Meed's Veil of Tears, feeling it anew, had only reminded Severus of how richly Potter had deserved everything he'd got.
That hatred couldn't be the path to Sectumsempra's counter. It wasn't the way to save Potter, or himself.
His only hope was Healer Meed. "You are the essential one," she had said, but he'd never really believed that. He hadn't believed it when she'd said it yesterday and, turning from the St Mungo's lobby into the corridor to her office, he didn't believe it today.
He knocked on the office door, and softly it swept open. Healer Meed sat at her desk, bent over a parchment, a steaming mug of tea at hand.
"Come in." The parchment rolled itself up and a black ribbon snaked into a neat bow around it. "Administrative annoyances. As if I didn't have better things to do." She looked irritably at the parchment, and it flew to a cubbyhole in a towering shelf against the wall. Severus entered the office and stole a glance at the Pensieve. It sat on its recessed counter, topped by its customary white cloud.
"Sit down," said Healer Meed, and he did. "How do you feel this morning?"
Calm, Severus suddenly realised. Perhaps his time with Healer Meed had been an emotional bloodletting: an overabundance of feeling had been drained, so that, although his emotions hadn't changed, they were reduced to the point that he could control them.
"Fine," he said and almost meant it.
"Good, because it's time to get to work." She stood. "First we'll visit James Potter."
Severus swallowed. Healer Meed looked at him sternly, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking.
"Yes. You'll get to see your handiwork. It won't be pretty, I'm afraid. The effectiveness of the Blood-Replenisher is wearing off. Come along."
They left her office and entered the lift. At the fourth floor, they emerged to a host of Healers swarming around a massive desk. A sign on the opposite wall said The Inigo Braithwaite Acute Spell Damage Ward. Speaking to no one, Healer Meed took Severus's hand. He felt his stomach flip sickeningly as, turning at an odd angle away from the desk, she led him to the end of a silent corridor.
Severus rubbed his nauseous stomach and gulped. Giving him a sympathetic look, Healer Meed released his hand.
"I'm sorry I upset your stomach, but I really didn't want all those people seeing us. It's quite irregular, after all, for someone who hasn't even left Hogwarts to be treating a St Mungo's patient."
Treating a patient? Severus felt even less capable when Healer Meed put it like that. "You mean Pott--I mean, James, is in here somewhere?"
Without answering, Healer Meed drew her wand and pointed toward the wall. A door appeared, to which was affixed a large red-lettered sign:
ISOLATION
Positively No Unauthorised Admittance
For further information or to obtain clearances,
please see the Healer-in-Charge.
"Isolation," said Severus nervously. "Isn't that for people who have dragon pox or something?"
"Ordinarily, yes. I just wanted to frighten off anybody who might have worked out my concealing magic and discovered this room."
"Concealing magic," said Severus. "Those people at the desk had no idea we were there, did they?"
"No, they didn't." Healer Meed smiled. "I confess I rather pride myself on my skill at Disillusionment. That was a fairly advanced charm I cast on us when I took your hand. I've yet to meet the witch or wizard who could pierce it." She looked around the corridor with satisfaction. "Further, I've wedged this place into my own bit of reality. Healer Wort--the Healer-in-Charge of Acute Spell Damage--is the only person besides you and my house-elf whom I've allowed to perceive this hallway and the Isolation Room. She knows the room holds a patient, but she doesn't know who the patient is. She can't get into the room except in an emergency, and then only if I can't be reached. Happily, I've always managed to be reached." Her smile faded. "As there have been emergencies in the past few days."
Uneasiness replaced Severus's pleasure at being included in Healer Meed's secret. "Emergencies?"
"Twice James has stopped breathing. He's getting closer to death. He needs our help more than ever." She turned to the door of the Isolation Room and touched it with her wand. The door opened and they entered.
Although lit by candles and overheated by a roaring fire, the Isolation Room struck Severus as gloomy and dim. He avoided looking at the bed in the corner and the heavily-blanketed form lying upon it, but he had already glimpsed Potter's shock of unruly hair, black against the white pillowcase. The house-elf, dabbing at Potter's face with a wet cloth, turned toward them when Healer Meed closed the door. Severus fastened his attention on the elf.
"How is our patient, Dilsey?" asked Healer Meed.
Sighing gustily, Dilsey dropped her cloth into the basin beside Potter's bed. She looked sharply at Severus. "Oh, Healer Meed, ma'am, James Potter is murdered! Murdered! The Dark wizard's horrid cut is bleeding and James Potter won't open his throat for Dilsey's potions!" She jabbed a bony finger at Severus. "And all because of that wicked Dark wizard, that awful boy!"
Healer Meed went to Potter's bedside and looked beneath his blankets. Her face went still. "Bring me more Blood-Replenisher."
"Dilsey will bring. Not that it will do any good." The house-elf trotted to a cauldron sitting on the hob and ladled potion into a cup. Both cauldron and cup steamed, sending a coppery odour into the air.
Dilsey carried the potion to Potter's bedside and handed it to Healer Meed. Healer Meed touched Potter's throat with the tip of her wand, then with a sure and gentle touch lifted Potter to a sitting position and poured the potion down his throat.
Potter's mouth fell open when Healer Meed tilted his head back, but he never so much as flickered an eyelid. As the bedclothes fell away from his chest, Severus saw a bloodstain spreading slowly on his nightshirt.
Healer Meed carefully, almost tenderly lay Potter upon his pillow. Then she stepped back and surveyed him with a frown.
Severus had hung back, standing just inside the door even after Healer Meed had approached Potter's bedside. He remained there now, watching the whey-faced Potter, the sombre Healer Meed, the house-elf muttering and wringing her hands.
"What are you waiting for?" said Healer Meed. "Come over here."
"Yes, Dark Wizard, sir! Come over here and just try to finish your job, just try to murder James Potter, and Dilsey will--"
Severus clamped his teeth together. Even out cold, an inert lump, Potter won worshippers.
"Thank you, Dilsey," said Healer Meed. "Take the rest of the afternoon off, why don't you; when was the last time you visited your sister?"
"Dilsey doesn't want to visit her sister; Holly gives Dilsey nothing but cold tea and hard buns. Besides, James Potter needs Dilsey's protection from--"
"Severus and I will take care of James. He's quite safe with us. Now please go."
Dilsey looked doubtful. "Well, as long as Healer Meed--"
Healer Meed pointed inexorably at the door. With more muttering and a final, baleful glance at Severus, the house-elf reluctantly left.
"She's very conscientious," Healer Meed sighed after the door closed. "Sometimes too conscientious."
She looked down at Potter and frowned again. Severus looked at him too. Candle-light flickered across Potter's face. The light was weak, like starlight reflected off water. It did nothing to add colour to his cheeks.
Healer Meed folded Potter's sheet and blanket down just below his chest. A bright thread of blood broke away from the splotch on his nightshirt and crept slowly over his breastbone. Healer Meed lay her hand on Potter's forehead, then moved it to Potter's chest, above his heart. Her frown deepened. When she lifted her hand, Severus saw a smudge of blood on her palm.
"This isn't good," she said softly. "This isn't good at all."
"What's wrong?" said Severus.
She looked at him thoughtfully. "I don't know that it's wrong. Perhaps it's exactly right. It's bad for James, however, in that he's so far gone that if he should stop breathing, I won't be able to revive him. Keeping him alive will be up to you."
Severus stared at her. Up to him? He didn't know anything about keeping people alive!
Healer Meed folded Potter's bedding down to his waist. "Help me take his nightshirt off."
Severus was damned if he was going to fool around with Potter's clothing. He slid his hands gingerly beneath Potter's shoulders, then further under his armpits and lifted.
It was like lifting a corpse. Potter's head lolled back, then forward. His body was heavy and limp. If it hadn't been for the feverish heat radiating outward from Potter's skin, through his nightshirt, Severus would have believed him dead.
With sure-handed ease, Healer Meed pulled Potter's nightshirt over his head. Now there was no protective cloth between Potter's furnace-hot body and Severus's bare hands. He lowered Potter as quickly as he dared and pulled his hands away. Staring at his palms, he was surprised to see that they weren't burned.
Healer Meed was gazing down at Potter's exposed torso. Reluctantly Severus looked too.
He hadn't forgotten what Potter's Sectumsempra wound looked like--indeed, the memory of the entire night was seared into his mind. And the chilling thing, he realised as he stared, was that since that night Potter's cut hadn't changed at all. It was the same length, from his neck nearly to his groin, exposing the same depth of skin, fat and gleaming muscle. Blood oozed ceaselessly, trickling from the lip of the wound over Potter's chest and belly, leaving a lurid trail across his skin.
Healer Meed, her face pale, her eyes fearful, pointed at Sectumsempra's cut with her wand. "I can do no more for him. It is time for you to mend him, and you don't have much time. If he lasts into tomorrow...." She faltered. "If he lives till then, I shall be very much surprised."
Potter to die before tomorrow? Severus had spent five days between the two of them, Dumbledore and Meed (and he'd call her Meed if he wanted to, Dumbledore wasn't here to stop him), and he still didn't know how to save Potter; they hadn't taught him a damned thing! "What am I supposed to do?" he demanded.
She met his eyes. Through several moments of silence, Severus felt her moving gently in his mind.
"You don't hate him as you did. We managed that with the Veil. So your emotion's not standing in your way."
"That still doesn't tell me what to do!"
"No...." Healer Meed considered her wand. "It will require some reasonably complicated wand work."
"Like what?"
Healer Meed shrugged. "I don't know."
How the hell was he supposed to know, then? "What about the incantation? How does that go?"
"I couldn't begin to tell you."
Severus's despair must have shown on his face, for Healer Meed's brow furrowed with pity. "I'm sorry. But I did tell you that you would have to be the one to heal James Potter. I'm sure Professor Dumbledore told you the same."
Severus nodded dumbly. Healer Meed was right about one thing: at that moment he couldn't hate Potter. Hatred couldn't compare, couldn't even exist alongside the sheer terror that Potter might die.
And he would do it before Severus's eyes. The first death Severus would see would be that of someone he had killed.
James Potter is murdered! Murdered!...all because of that Dark wizard, that awful boy!
God, no. He willed Potter to life, and not because he wanted to stay in school or out of Azkaban, but because he didn't want Potter to die. He didn't want to be a murderer.
He took out his wand and adopted the attitude of a wizard about to cast a spell--wand extended, back straight, feet planted firmly apart. He cudgelled his brain for the right wand movements, the perfect incantation. Nothing came. He lowered his wand and stared at Potter, looking for some scrap of inspiration. Again, nothing. Near death, Potter obstructed him, just as he'd done in life.
But there was no help anywhere else. Severus had nowhere else to look. So he stared at Potter, watched Potter's only movement, the rise and fall of his chest. It didn't rise much. And as Severus watched, it jerked a couple of times and stopped.
Potter was no longer breathing.
Severus froze, rooted to the spot. He looked at Healer Meed--she was a Healer, she'd do something--but Healer Meed didn't move.
"I told you. I can do nothing for him." Healer Meed's voice quavered and her eyes shone with tears.
Severus turned back to Potter, his mind blank with panic. A bluish hue had appeared around Potter's lips. Severus raised his wand higher. No incantation came, no graceful and complex wand movements occurred to him. He had nothing but his fear.
If only he could reverse everything that had happened, everything he had done. If only he could knit together the tear he had made; if only he could restart the breathing he had stopped.
And then he heard music.
It wasn't in the room. There was nothing in that close, bare space that could make music. Even though he had seen her with nothing that could have produced that soft, stringed melody, he looked at Healer Meed. But she was making no music. Her head bowed in her hand, she didn't even seem to hear it.
Severus looked back at Potter. He still had no idea where the music came from, yet his ears were filled with the longing sound, that made him yearn for the magic that made the music, that made him want more than anything to be in the place where that music lived.
But he couldn't go there yet; not with Potter here, dead if he didn't do something. He could only hope that the door to that place would remain open long enough, that the magic flowing through it would be magic he could use to heal Potter.
He stared at his wand. What should he do with it? An instinct told him to place it on Potter's abdomen, near his groin, at the nether end of his Sectumsempra wound.
The music filled Severus's mind. Magic washed through him. He felt lifted, carried to the brink of something, somewhere that brought tears to his eyes. He blinked them away, until Potter's body came clear again.
Then words filtered into his mind. They were his words, he made them. He didn't receive them, as he received the magic and the music. So they didn't say very well what he wanted them to say, just as his voice didn't properly convey the music he heard in his mind. But for once he didn't care. He didn't measure up, although he was doing the best he could, but for once, it didn't matter. He simply sang.
"Slicing sinew, breaking bone,
Blood aflow with heartfelt groan.
With all the cutting curse devise,
To mend again, you must be wise.
Take the thread of life in hand.
Warp and weft you must command.
Sing weave, weave, out of your soul,
And knit the shredded body whole."
Severus traced Potter's wound with his wand. Its bloody lips closed into a line of pink, freshly-knitted flesh.
Severus heard a gasp behind him: Healer Meed. His heart leapt into his throat. He was healing Potter. He had found the counter-curse to Sectumsempra. The charm spun out from his wand, the Knitting-Up Spell, Textum.
With a harsh intake of breath, Potter's chest moved. Severus's wand travelled over the hill and vale of his breathing, knitting the cut over his stomach, his chest, his jaw. Colour rose to Potter's cheeks, pink displacing the grey. He gave a deep sigh, as if of relief, when Severus knitted up the last of his wound.
The music stopped. The door closed, the magic ended. Potter lay quietly, breathing evenly, looking peacefully asleep. Severus's hands were as close to him as they'd been before, but he no longer felt heat blasting from Potter's body.
Severus stared at him. He didn't feel triumph at his magical accomplishment. He didn't feel relief at escaping expulsion from Hogwarts and imprisonment in Azkaban. He felt numb, empty. He wanted that door with the magic behind it to open again, but he knew it wouldn't. There was no longer any need.
"Severus," said Healer Meed, and he looked up. Her eyes were shining, so that their many hues of grey looked like the facets of a jewel.
She approached Potter and touched his forehead. "His fever's gone. The Dark magic has left his body." Her fingers brushed the thin pink scar on Potter's torso that was all that was left of Sectumsempra, following the path that Severus's wand had taken. Her eyes widened.
"This scar--why, it's nothing but a line on top of his skin. Dittany three times a day for two weeks and I can erase it. The curse wound is completely healed." She looked at Severus. "You did it."
Severus looked back at her, and finally relief crept into his heart. "You'll tell Dumbledore?"
She picked up Potter's nightshirt, Vanished the bloodstain from its front, and they helped Potter back into it. Again Potter's eyelids didn't so much as flutter. He felt lighter, though. Less like a corpse.
They laid Potter back down and Healer Meed pulled the blankets up to his chin. "The moment James regains consciousness, Professor Dumbledore wants to know."
"When will that be?"
"Tomorrow morning, at the latest. Probably earlier."
Severus looked away. Suppose he had failed? Would she have delayed to tell Dumbledore that?
"We shan't be certain that James is cured until he wakes up and speaks. When that happens, Professor Dumbledore will return to St Mungo's. He wants to talk to both of you."
"Together?"
"Together."
Severus decided he could wait until Potter regained consciousness.
"But he will wake up, Severus. He's cured. I'm certain of it." Healer Meed smiled and touched Severus's arm. "And don't worry. Professor Dumbledore will be very proud of you when he hears what you've done." She looked at the ceiling. In a moment the air before her popped with Dilsey's Apparition.
"Good news, Dilsey. Severus has healed James, and I expect him to make a full recovery. I'd like you to begin a regimen of dittany, three times a day, applied to his scar. And the instant he wakes up, let me know."
Dilsey didn't answer. From the moment Healer Meed had said the words "healed James", she'd been gaping at Severus.
Severus gestured irritably at Potter. "If you don't believe her, look for yourself."
Dilsey gave Potter a cursory glance, then resumed her round-eyed staring at Severus. "Of course I believe Mistress Healer Meed. It is just that...well...you are a surprising person, Severus Snape, sir."
Healer Meed laughed. "Yes, he certainly is that." She took Severus's arm. "Come on, Severus. Let me buy you dinner at the Leaky Cauldron. We'll call Professor Dumbledore from there and give him the good news together."