Seeking the Star

Ch.12.

It began that night. It started with Harry\'s waking; seizure-like shaking of limbs, a howl that tore from his throat. Then it spread, until all the students in the Infirmary were curled up and weeping, shaking and terrified. All the other students were cleared out of the hospital wing and moved to the Room of Requirement, which dutifully transformed into a completely equipped hospital. Severus fought Harry until the boy submitted to the potions that would calm him. He eventually fell into a drugged sleep, but by morning, even the paintings had vacated.

With his hands now healed and all of his self restraints broken by days of constant and merciless torture, the walls that humans erect around their minds had crumbled, and Harry\'s Schema had broken free and magnified, making his agmanimanifest to anyone who ventured within its sphere. Harry\'s Schema, like the Schema of almost every powerful Wizard, had been apparent before in the magnetism that, for lack of a better word, his teachers had begun to call his aura. Now, that aura took on the opposite quality at far greater magnitude; anyone within two floors or one hundred yards of the hospital wing was now repelled with the force of all the negative emotion that Harry had wished to release on his attackers, but was unable to. Everything within the sphere of Harry\'s aura had to be relocated. Teachers made plans to use classrooms they could actually enter. Had it not started on Saturday and given them time to prepare, classes would have been chaos.

Of all those who had been in the room when Harry awoke and it had all began, only Dumbledore, Madam Pomfrey, and Professor Snape remained able to withstand the onslaught. Harry had read all three of their Schema. This sort of aura manifestation was so rare no one was quite sure why Harry\'s knowledge of their Schema protected them from his disseminating feelings, but it was quite fortunate. Otherwise, no one would have been able to care for him, and the boy was certainly not capable of caring for himself. Unless Professor Snape lay in bed with him, Harry would thrash and moan, threatening to re-injure himself. To combat this danger, Albus had recommended he be medicated into near oblivion, separating mind from body and allowing Harry to sort through his horrific memories without physically hurting himself any further. Harry could not be made to understand what was happening around him, but Severus felt nothing from the boy that would indicate he was fighting against their ministrations. His brain was feverishly working through his experiences, trying to make it all manageable with Severus\' assistance.

The moment she heard of his return, Hermione was bound and determined to see Harry. At breakfast, she convinced Ron to accompany her. They had both heard the rumors of the darkness surrounding the Hospital wing, but nothing short of having the door barred by the Dark Lord himself was going to keep Hermione away.

\"You don\'t have to talk to Harry. Be there for my moral support, at least,\" she pled.

And Ron had grudgingly acquiesced. But as they entered into Harry\'s aura, Ron stopped cold. He was overcome by a stabbing headache, and he felt as though someone had poured ice into his bowels. On top of that, he wanted to howl from the agonizing sadness that enveloped him.

\"There\'s absolutely no bloody way I\'m going any farther down this hall, Hermione. It\'s terrible. It\'s worse than spiders.\" His face had gone entirely white, and then greenish, and he was backing up slowly. She looked at him in exasperation.

\"It does feel sad, yes. But not terrible.\" But Ron was already gone, running in the opposite direction. Hermione sighed sadly, and headed up the hall to the Hospital. Ron was being rediculous with his obvious, but un-admitted, worry while Harry was missing and his refusal to even listen to anything Hermione had to say about him. She was trying to convince Ron to go to the Headmaster and talk about Harry, hoping that Dumbledore would be able to talk sense into her ridiculously stubborn boyfriend. Her efforts consistently failed, and she had a feeling that this problem, whatever it was, would not be helping her case any. She had no idea that Harry had never read Ron\'s Schema; he could recognize threads that concerned Ron, but that was as far as his knowledge advanced. Ron had remained stubbornly resistant to the idea of Harry reading his Schema. He had, in fact, been most averse to being touched at all. Hermione pushed open the door to the Hospital wing, which had been slightly ajar.

She was greeted by a very strange sight. Harry was lying in bed, his glasses off and his hair matted to his head in clumps. He looked very pale, but he seemed to be resting quietly. That in itself wasn\'t so odd. What made the picture surreal was the fact that his hand was resting on Professor Snape\'s thigh. The Potions Master was sitting close to the bed in a comfortable looking chair she would have been willing to bet Dumbledore conjured for him and reading a book. As she watched, his one hand dropped to gently stroke Harry\'s sweaty hair, before lifting again to turn the page of his book, which he propped close to his face with his other hand.

\"Ah, Miss Granger, do come in.\" The voice of Professor Dumbledore cut through her daze. \"I see you managed to penetrate Mr. Potter\'s little defense system.\"

\"Defense system?\" She was confused. \"Was that what scared Ron off? What has Harry done? Is he all right?\" Her voice was rising in a panic she found she couldn\'t control.

\"Please, come sit down.\" Dumbledore waved his wand, and another chair appeared next to the bed, on the opposite side from where the Potions Master sat. She sat carefully and looked expectantly at the Headmaster, who had a chair beside hers. Snape appeared to be pointedly ignoring her.

Dumbledore spent a moment watching Hermione\'s face. He knit his fingers together and propped his elbows on the chair before he spoke. \"Harry has been through a very traumatic experience in the past days, one which he may relate to you if he wishes and one which, truly, we don\'t entirely know. When we found him, he was gravely injured, mentally as well as physically.\"

Hermione looked over at Harry, who still appeared to be lying there peacefully, though his fingers were twitching slightly on the Professor\'s thigh. Snape put his hand on top of Harry\'s, rubbing gently on the top of his hand. When his fingers stopped twitching, the Potions Master removed his hand. He never looked up from his book or paused in his reading. Her face clouded with pain. She looked at her friend, obviously still naked under his sheets.

\"Will he...\" She found herself unexpectedly close to tears.

Dumbledore smiled kindly. \"We expect he\'ll make a full recovery. He just needs time. Right now, he\'s heavily sedated, which is why he hasn\'t acknowledged you.\" Dumbledore patted her hand comfortingly. Albus was tired from the time he had worked to heal Bellatrix\'s work on Harry\'s skin. The Dark Mark, especially, had been difficult to remove entirely, as it had Dark Magic caught up in it. Harry didn\'t even realize that he had ever had the scars, though he did remember Bellatrix carving the Dark Mark. Albus had purposefully left several others, imbuing them with the same sort of power that he had left in Harry\'s training scars from the summer, but they were all covered by Harry\'s blankets. They would serve to both protect and remind, later.

Hermione was starting to feel overwhelmed with sadness, despite the fact that Harry\'s outlook was positive. Her head was swimming, and she put one hand to her forehead, covering her eyes.

\"I expect, Miss Granger, that you might experience some relief of the onslaught of Harry\'s aura if you touch him. It might even bring him around enough to react to you.\" Snape\'s silky, acidic voice cut suddenly into the air. Hermione\'s head shot up.

\"Did you just call him Harry?\" she asked.

Snape looked oddly at her, his black eyes seeming to take her measure, and went back to his book without another word. Granger had no idea how strong the impulse was to climb into bed with Harry, to cradle the boy to his chest until they were both calm again. He was reading to distract both himself and Harry, and because Harry seemed to find his voice soothihoughough Severus severely doubted that Harry understood the Potions theory he was reading. He could apparently hear Snape\'s internal narrative, though Severus couldn\'t understand much of what was happening in Harry\'s mind. His hand stroked Harry\'s head again.

\"Is that why he\'s touching you?\"

\"Miss Granger, I would thank you to stop your interrogation,\" he snapped, more quick to temper than usual. This whole exercise was Albus-engineered ridiculousness, a careful show for Granger that she was not appreciating to its fullest. \"Harry and I have been partially bonded via Sanos healing. For the next few days, our bond will be especially strong. He apparently finds it comforting to be in direct contact with me. I assure you,\" he finished, his voice tinged with bitterness, \"the condition is not permanent.\"

Harry thrashed his head a little, clenching his fingers around Snape\'s robes. Snape immediately bent his head close to Harry\'s, stroking the boy\'s hair and speaking soothingly to him in a low velvety voice. Hermione had never heard such a voice from the Professor. It sounded like he was pouring verbal honey over Harry\'s head. Harry opened his eyes and mumbled to the Potions Master. His words just reached Hermione\'s ears, and she was right next to the bed.

\"Sev...Don\'t be angry, Sev. Don\'t need to be angry.\" She stiffened in shock. Since when did Harry call Snape anything familiar?

\"Shhhh, Harry. I won\'t be angry anymore, all right. I won\'t be angry anymore.\" Snape was lookinto nto Harry\'s eyes, stroking his hair with the utmost tenderness, and Harry was stroking Snape\'s leg with shaky fingers. Their foreheads touched lightly, Snape\'s hair falling over his shoulder and onto Harry\'s chest. Dumbledore pulled Hermione from the bizarrely tender and somehow deeprivarivate scene by answering her unspoken questions.

\"Severus and Harry have been bonded by the Sanos healing that Severus performed to save Harry\'s life. In this particular case, the type of Sanos coupled with the fact that Harry fed his Sanos energy into Professor Snape to assist in the healing process, the bond is very strong. That means that right now, Harry feels Severus\' emotions, and Severus feels Harry\'s. It is temporary, as Professor Snape informed you earlier, but it is so strong that I consider it necessary to take over Professor Snape\'s classes until he and Harry can be comfortably separated. It is also true that if you touch Harry, you will receive a respite from the onslaught of his uncontrolled aura; that is, the manifestation of his Schema. I\'d imagine that it is probably making you rather uncomfortable.\"

Hermione thought that she heard Severus snort softly. He was aware that the girl\'s emotions were slowly buckling under the pain that Harry was broadcasting, despite the reprieve granted via his knowledge of her Schema. Everyone else in the room had Schematic control, and thus could fight the aura better.

\"Touching him will also help him recognize that you\'re here, and may or may not prompt him to speak to you,\" Dumbledore concluded.

Hermione nodded, and turned back to face the bed. Snape had gone back to reading his book as if nothing abnormal had occurred just moments ago. She was deeply confused by this glimpse of a Severus Snape she had never seen before. When he continued to ignore her, she took Harry\'s left hanhichhich lay limp on the bed. It was covered in needle fine scars, thin white lines only visible from close up. They ran across the back of his hand, and up and across his fingers.

Taking his hand was like taking hold of clarity. A weight of emotion she hadn\'t even realized she\'d had lifted. The oppressive sadness weighing on her was gone. Harry\'s Schema had been inundating her with those feelings. After a few minutes, Harry opened his eyes and turned his head a little to look at her. She leaned , re, resting her elbows on the mattress so she could hear him if he chose to speak to her.

\"Mione. Don\'t worry about Sev. He\'s a good guy, you know. He saved me from them.\" Harry lifted his hand and gently stroked her face, not even considering that Hermione really had no idea who \'they\' were. His hand shook badly, and his eyes were glassy. Hermione didn\'t even want to consider how much Calming Draught he\'d probably had. She pressed his hand to her face, and then took it between both of hers. His palm was feverishly warm, the back of his hand almost icy. \"Mione.\" She looked into his eyes. \"Be good to Sev, okay? And tell Ron...\" He trailed off, his eyes shutting slowly.

\"Tell Ron what, Harry?\" Hermione whispered, her eyes filling with tears.

\"Tell Mr. Weasley that Harry is very sorry that he\'ll be missing Quidditch. And tell Miss Weasley that she is a fine Seeker.\" Snape didn\'t even look up from his book as he relayed Harry\'s message. Harry squeezed Hermione\'s hand, as if to indicate that what Severus had said was, indeed, what he\'d wanted to say. Hermione fled the room before her tears overtook her, pausing only to whisper a choked \"Thank you\" to Snape.

Severus looked up at Dumbledore and sighed. \"That didn\'t go very well, Albus.\" The headmaster chuckled.

\"I think Harry disagrees with you, Severus.\" The boy had reached up and taken Severus\' hand, intertwining their fingers.

\"I\'m aware, thank you, Headmaster.\" In spite of himself, Severus Snape squeezed Harry Potter\'s hand, and could have sworn he saw the boy smile. He was so concentrated on Harry, he entirely missed Albus\' satisfied expression.

a/n-
the hanged one-transition. a period of rest between significant events, a time when action is inadvisable. surrender to inevitable circumstances, descent to the depths of the self, altered perceptions by examining things from a different viewpoint.