Misconceptions

Hey everyone, I’m back for a rather pitiful update. I’ve been neglecting this for so long, and I’m sorry to say that I have no excuse for it. Oh well! On with the show...

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Harry glanced around anxiously, cursing under his breath when he realized that he would need his wand if he wanted to get a good look at anything. Inhaling deeply, he shifted his professor onto his left side and struggled to remain standing under the dead weight.

Reaching into his robes for his wand, he flinched and let out a strangled gasp as his swollen hand made contact with it, aggravating the blisters and digging into the exposed flesh. Pinching his eyes closed and breathing through his mouth he quickly waved the wand and whispered ‘lumos’.

The tip of his wand lit up, and the cave was illuminated almost instantly. Harry kept his wand raised high, prepared to send a curse flying at any potential danger. From what he could see the cave was deserted, and had been that way for quite a while. ‘Well, since third year anyways’ He thought to himself grimly.

The walls of the cave were damp, and somewhere near the back he could hear water dripping onto the stone floor. ‘Of course, it couldn’t just be a dry cave with a slight draft; it had to be a bone-chilling cave with ceiling leaks. Wonderful.’ He sighed, knowing that he wasn’t going to get anything accomplished in terms of accommodation while he had to shuffle around under Snape’s weight.

Spotting a rather large dry area on top of a slightly elevated slab of cool stone, Harry made his way over, depositing his professor in the most delicate manner he could manage with numb limbs and a mangled hand. As soon as he determined there would be no risk of the stoic man injuring himself any further Harry made quick work of the cave.

He attempted to cast a warming spell, but it quickly dissolved as the air and snow from outside blew in relentlessly. “Damn, I need to block the entrance...” Harry quickly stood up and looked around, the only things he could were rocks of varying size, a few sticks, and quite a few spider webs still intact from the days of Aragog and his children.

His eyes lighting up, Harry quickly pointed his wand at the corner with the most webs accumulated in it. Calling out a quick “Waddiwasi!” he had the webs unstuck from the ceiling, and floating towards the entrance. Quickly releasing the spell, he waited only a second as the webs began to fall to shout “Engorgio!” and watch the webs all grow at once, attaching themselves to the walls at the entrance and forming a tight silk tarp over it.

Harry noted with satisfaction that there was no longer any snow making its way past the sticky makeshift door. Sparing a glance over at Snape, who was looking rather ashen and appeared to be quaking from the cold, he knew that a simple warming spell would not be enough.

Spelling the piles of various sticks to another dry patch in the cave and making a circle of rocks around it, Harry cast an ‘incendio’ into his makeshift fire pit. The cave immediately took on a warmer glow, and Harry quickly edged his way close to Snape.

Finally able to see his professor in proper light, Harry knew he had to assess any other damages. With an audible gulp, he whispered “wingardium leviosa” and watched as Snape floated up a foot or so off the stone palette he had been on.

Harry began removing Snape’s robes, wincing when he was forced to peel the material off of bloodied skin. “How did the Greasy Git manage to get himself into a condition like this...” he muttered as the robe was finally removed, and he was met with wound after wound. Some of them had dried over, and left large crusty patches of blood. Yet there were others that were still oozing blood, and what looks suspiciously like pus.

Harry closed his eyes tight for a moment; swallowing the bile he felt building in his throat. He wasn’t a mediwizard, he had no idea how to treat such extensive wounds. He felt himself slipping into a panic, but stopped himself. “Come on Harry, you’ve been in worse situations than this...Think, what did Madame Pomfrey always do when I came in with injuries...” he began making a mental list.

“Okay, I need to be able to see the extend of the injuries, so I need to wash away the excess blood first...right, so that would be, scourgify!” he watched the blood and dirt disappear with a wave of his wand.

When Harry could finally see the injuries, he sighed in relief seeing that it wasn’t as bad as it had looked before. There was still an issue with the ones that were clearly infected, and Harry knew that he would have to manually clean those ones.

Harry pulled a heavy stone over to him, and transfigured it into a stone basin. Casting a quick spell, he filled it with water and ripped a piece of his robe off and soaked it in the water.

Gasping in shock, Harry looked down at his right hand, remembering for the first time in since they had entered the cave that he was also injured. The blisters on his hand had opened, leaving even more of his skin raw and exposed. Sighing, he ripped a strip of his robe off with his good hand, and wrapped it tightly around his injured one. Exhaling, he swallowed tightly and continued to wet his makeshift cloth.

After wiping all of Snape’s wounds down, and painstakingly cleaning each gash as much as he could without getting queasy, he lifted the spell and had Snape resting on the stone again.

By this point, the cave was comfortably warm, but Snape was still shaking. “He must have a fever...” Harry said aloud. He had seen his Aunt Petunia put a cold cloth on Dudley’s forehead when he came down with a high fever, she also gave him muggle medicine, which Harry didn’t have access to. The best he could do at the time was put a strip of his robe doused in cool water on Snape’s forehead, and hope for the best.

When he was sure that Snape was as comfortable as he would be given his condition, Harry propped himself up on a large rock, and drifted off to sleep.

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Okay, I know it was an incredibly slow chapter, but I had to set the scene, y'know? Next chapter things will be more interesting, I promise. ;)