Seeking the Star

Ch.11.

Severus and Albus were getting frantic. Harry was kidnapped on Wednesday, it was now the wee hours of Friday, and they were no closer to finding him. No student had been allowed to leave their House, and everyone in Harry\'s Advanced Potions class had been given a drop of Veritserum and ordered to relate their version of events. They discovered that Pansy Parkinson had placed the Portkey, which had been sent to her by her father. It was set to only transport Harry. She had not known what it was, she was only told to place it, and was following her father\'s directions. There were no leads on Harry\'s whereabouts. All they knew was that he was still alive, as Dumbledore had not felt any indication of his death, which would be apparent no matter the distance.

Severus was pacing his room, wracking his brain for any possible place Harry could be. All the \'typical\' Death Eater torture areas were empty, and he had felt no summons from the Dark Lord to indicate that this was a sanctioned kidnapping, or that the Dark Lord even knew about it. \'Not that I could have answered a summons anyway, as a Hogwarts teacher!\' he thought savagely. The Aurors had proclaimed that no one was in Malfoy Manor, or any of the other seized Death Eater properties. Neither Severus nor Albus had been allowed to do any searching personally. When Dumbledore suggested it, Cornelius Fudge became most offended that his Aurors were being belittled.

Severus sat down at his desk and took a silk pouch out of a heavily warded drawer in his desk. He slid the well-worn cards out of their pouch and shuffled them thoroughly, feeling their tingle spread through his fingers. He laid out the cards, and took a deep breath. Despite his public denunciation of any sort of Divination, Severus found that this particular deck of tarot cards resonated highly with him. He only used them for the most serious and insolvable of problems, but they had never failed him. He laid the cards in his own pattern, derived from a particularly archaic form where the reader asked the questions as he placed the cards.

Who am I looking for? This question was more a test than anything. He needed to be sure he wasn\'t being sidetracked by the cards. He turned the first two cards.
The Star. Well that, assuredly, was Harry. \'Trust in oneself and the universe. Giving of oneself without regret, indeed.\' he thought, with some bitterness. The boy\'s nature was his bounty and bane.
Princess of Cups. \'Healing, magic, charisma, magnetism, attraction. Yes, that\'s Harry.\' Satisfied, he turned the next cards.

What has happened to him?
The Devil. \'Bondage, loss of self to another\'s will, violence. That fits.\' He really didn\'t want to consider the full implications of the card for Harry.
Eight of Staves, inverted. \'Wanton destruction, desecration of the sacred, defying authority.\' Severus\' belly went cold. He knew firsthand of the tortures Lucius was capable of, and his own participation had been required in more than a few such events. The thought of it happening to Harry, though, made him feel sick. With renewed resolve, he turned the next cards.

Where is he? Severus hoped that several cards would provide a clear answer.
The Magician, inverted. Justice, inverted. The Four of Sacred Circles.
\'A male magician, malovent, injustice, home--but--\' Severus puzzled, and then all the pieces fit together.

He leapt from his chair and raced to find Dumbledore. Halfway to the Headmaster\'s office, Severus collided forcibly with him in the hallway.

\"Malfoy Manor!\" he declared breathlessly. \"Harry is somewhere in Malfoy Manor. We must hurry.\" Albus had been somewhat skeptical of the Minister\'s simpering promise that Malfoy Manor had been thoroughly searched, and immediately discarded the order to stay away from the Manor for Snape\'s certainty that Harry was there. \"I have no idea where he\'d be. There\'s plenty of Malfoy Manor that no one but Lucius probably knows about.\"

\"I can find him once we\'re there,\" Dumbledore said dismissively. \"We must go quickly.\" They both set off down the hall at the briskest walk they could both manage. Albus glanced at his Potions Master, whose face was set in hard lines of distress. Snape had not slept since Harry\'s disappearance. His work in finding the boy had been tireless. He\'d Pensieved his memories, he\'d the Aurors every lead possible to find the lost boy, he\'d brewed every potion he could imagine that they might need when they recovered Harry. Severus looked worn and wasted, and now his eyes looked haunted by what he expected to see. The two Wizards headed towards Hogsmeade to the point where the wards stopped and allowed them to Apparate.

They arrived in a deserted hallway somewhere deep in Malfoy Manor. Albus staggered slightly under the weight of sudden pain, and Severus steadied him. The old wizard\'s eyes seemed far away, and he began walking down the hall, feeling his way along the wall, muttering to himself. He led them deeper into the Manor, and stopped in front of a seemingly random place in the wall. \"Door, here.\" he informed Severus shortly. He started muttering unlocking spells, feeling for the Schema within the spell. His fingers twitched on the stones, and they began to move.

Much like the entrance to Diagon Alley, the stones slid quietly apart into the opening of a passageway. Severus swept through it, not waiting to see if Dumbledore followed. Halfway down the dark stairwell, Albus grabbed his arm, halting him.

\"He\'s down there, Severus. It\'s not good.\" Severus nodded once, a gesture that Dumbledore did not see so much as felt and started down the stairs again. When they saw the light of the doorway at the end of the stairs, they both stopped. Albus could hear Severus drawing deep breaths, trying to calm himself. The Headmaster feared his Potions Master was going to be woefully unprepared, regardless. \"I\'ll take care of them. You get Harry and get out of here. I\'ll follow you shortly.\" Another nod from Severus. This one, he could see. The Potions Master\'s face was somewhere between worry and fury, and he steeled himself for what he would probably see. Dumbledore charged through the door, throwing curses left and right, and Snape made a beeline for the group of rapidly falling Death Eaters.

It was worse than he\'d expected--that was probably one of the greater understatements of his life. Harry lay limply over an ornate stone altar; his eyes crusted shut, and his entire face drenched in blood. His hair was stiffened with it. Head to foot, the boy was bloody, and the red fluid was dripping thickly off the table. His hands were flayed almost beyond recognition, tied to the altar above his head; a noose around Harry\'s neck was cutting off his air. His body was shockingly limp, and his limbs hung at odd angles, making Severus think most of his bones were broken. Severus immediately unbound him, and gathered the naked and broken body up in his arms, hearing the shattered bones grind against each other despite his care. Harry made a wet wheezing groan as Severus picked him up off the table, and tried to speak. Severus shushed him and Apparated back to Hogwarts, practically screaming for Madam Pomfrey as he raced up the road, into the castle, and to the Hospital wing. It never occurred to him to let go of the shattered body, that it might be easier to levitate him to the castle.

Severus lay the broken boy gently down on a bed. Poppy was at his side immediately, whispering a cleaning spell so they could inspect the damage. The boy\'s entire body was a bruise. Obviously broken bones made peaks in his skin, breaking through in places. He was covered in ritual cuts, including the Dark Mark, which was etched and burned into his inner left arm. Severus felt the bile rising in his throat and sat heavily into a chair to keep the black sparkles back from the edges of his vision. Head in his hands, he was half aware of Harry whispering hoarsely to Madam Pomfrey.

\"You can Sanos heal, Severus. You must. He says that I am not strong enough for this, that it must be you. Start with his hands.\" The boy was gasping for breath, his chest rising off the bed slightly as he struggled for oxygen. Snape found himself utterly captured by the look on the boy\'s face. \"His hands, Severus!\" Poppy\'s voice cut sharply through his daze, its edge honed by panic.

He cradled one utterly ravaged hand between both of his, and forced himself to relax into the Sanos. He painstakingly knit the hand back together, and was only vaguely aware of Poppy as she placed the other hand into his. Then he became aware of her talking to him.

\"Severus. Severus! Down to your knickers, now!\" He startled out of his Sanos trance.

\"Excuse me?\"

\"Do it!\" The severity and desperation in the woman\'s voice brooked no argument. He waved his wand at himself and his clothes lay folded neatly in a chair. \"Now lay down.\" She pointed to a bed, and he obediently lay on it. What happened next shocked him. She levitated Harry gingerly and laid him on Severus, chest to chest, so that the boy\'s forehead lay on his own. He looked up to find the barest slits of green eyes looking back at him.

\"Hands, Sev---your head. My hands...\" The boy\'s words were mere breaths with no vocal noise at all. Severus guessed that his windpipe had nearly been crushed. He gingerly took the boy\'s newly healed hands and put them on his own head. \"Yours--my back. Neck--tailbone...\" He placed his own hands as he was ordered. \"Now--together...\" Harry whispered, and Severus felt himself pulled into the deep concentration of Sanos. The boy\'s energy, even in his weakened state, was a forceful current in Severus\' body, pouring in through his chest, through the point on his forehead where Harry\'s scar rested, through his groin, and especially through his temples, where the boy\'s hands limply rested, tangled in his hair so they wouldn\'t fall. Harry\'s energy was warm, powerful, and deeply alive, despite the dire state of his body. He warmed Severus to the core, relaxing him further into the Sanos. Somehow, Harry\'s voice was directly inside his head.

\'Direct it, Sev. Heal me. Help me.\' And so direct it he did. Using his own Sanos abilities, coupled with Harry\'s, he mended broken bones, bruised organs, and his severely damaged trachea. He also went back and fixed the fine motor control in Harry\'s hands, which he had been unable to do himself. Despite the thorough flaying, they had not severed any major nerves beyond repair, and Harry\'s hands would be fully functional again. Harry had suffered no damage to his brain whatsoever, and Severus guessed that they had been \'careful\' not to damage the boy\'s mental facilities.

As he found less that needed healing, he began to pay more attention to the Sanos magic flowing between their bodies. Memories flowed through Harry and into him, and he saw glimpses of Harry\'s two torturous days in the hands of Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange. He saw the cupboard under the stairs of 4 Privet Drive, the terrifying face of Albus Dumbledore on the attack, an image of two snakes twined through Harry\'s long fingers, Voldemort\'s sneering face in the graveyard, and realized that Harry was probably seeing similar things. He began to realize the full import of this Healing. This was the other kind of Sanos that Dumbledore had mentioned, the kind that was generally not performed. Severus Snape and Harry Potter were now partially bonded. It filled Severus with wonder and fear. He felt the comfort from the exhausted boy; the reassurance that flooded him was beyond words.

Poppy Pomfrey was growing desperate. Man and boy had lain there unmoving for hours, and the currents of magic in the room were nearly unbearable. Albus had returned only recently, looking exhausted. She had seen to him seemingly without taking her eyes off the still pair, and then they both sat down to wait. She had heard the boy\'s breathing deepen and quiet, indicating the healing of his throat, and watched is bones re-set, but other than that she had no real clue as to their progress.

After what seemed an interminable time, the magic subsided, and she saw both Severus and Harry open their eyes. Harry\'s arms immediately encircled the chest of the Potions Master, who somehow managed to maneuver the boy so that he could sit up, cradling the newly whole body of Harry Potter to his chest possessively. Harry\'s skin was still covered with scars that shaped ghastly images, but they could be undone with a lesser Healing. Poppy could do nothing but watch, crying silent tears of relief. They were both alive. Her legs felt weak as she watched the usually stoic Potions Master cradling a naked Harry Potter to his own bare body with the utmost tenderness.

As Severus came back to himself, he realized that Harry was murmuring something into his chest.

\"I knew you\'d come, Severus. I knew the whole time you\'d come.\" As he heard the words, felt Harry\'s jaw shaping them over and over against his chest, the tears finally came for both of them. The boy had been through hell that he had only glimpsed during the Healing, yet he was comforting Severus. Harry wept unashamedly, his tears running warm down Severus\' chest; Severus did not understand his own weeping. He rocked them both gently back and forth, and cried silent tears into the hair of a boy who, only three months ago, he had hated.

a/n-
strength-an empowering strength, merging strengths in a cooperative endeavor. attainment at considerable peril. attraction of complementary energies and qualities.
the star-trust in oneself and the universe; giving of oneself unstintingly and without regret or fear of loss; life infused with joy or outward-directed activity.
princess of cups-a magical being, one who sees via the lens of insight. a healer, especially of the emotions. knowledge of herbs and the mysteries of earth; a deep intuitive knowledge of earth and water energies. charismatic energy; magnetism; attraction.
the magician, inverted- male active force, the use of power for negative purposes; powering over rather than empowering, selfish hoarding, exploiting others or resources.
justice, inverted-unfairness, bias, imbalance, discrimination, rewards to the undeserving. the scales tipped through bribary or corruption.
four of sacred circles-the home environment. setting things in motion following thorough preparation.