Worthy

*~ Disclaimer ~* I do not own any of the characters, language, plots, or locations from Harry Potter.
J. K. Rowling, the writer, holds all rights to Harry Potter and this story is only created for pleasure, not profit.

Summary: Death, battle, pain, facing your fears, saving the world… the Wizarding World expected the Boy-Who-Lived to endure it all. But what if he can’t? Who will be there to save the boy-who-only-wanted-to-be-normal? … Post-HBP

Author’s Note: Not much to say. Please enjoy.


Worthy
Chapter Six

Snape awoke to several aches. His back felt stiff and he half-consciously stretched to relieve it. His head felt light and stuffed with cotton, and he mentally added a headache draught to his list of things to do today. These were familiar aches. The encompassing ache over all of his skin was new and began to steadily wake him.

Finally, Snape opened his eyes and blinked a few times to adjust to the dim light. The room was dark, but a couple stripes of bright light across the floor indicated that this was due to curtains and not the actual time of day. Taking in the room, Snape found himself in a chair next to a bed. That explained the back ache, which was not infrequent from late nights at the cauldron. But there was someone on the bed… Potter!

Snapping to full consciousness, Snape stood up and, ignoring the protest of his muscles, moved away towards the sitting room. He made it as far as the divide before the invisible bond seemed to clamp around him. Snape paused to adjust. This was the furthest he had been from Potter thus far, and the ache that began with their first distance seemed multiplied. Taking a few breaths, Snape moved more slowly towards the door. Each step seemed to twitch the cord around him in a sharp moment of pain and then ache. Snape hadn’t considered the East Suite as being very far from the Master Suite next door, but he was beginning to wonder how the weight of so many inches would feel as he tried to take his rest.

He had made it to the door. Opening it and taking the first step into the hall caused a pinch that seemed to burn brightly for a moment and the whole of the bond tightened further. Snape took another minute to adjust and another moment of reconsidering the distance as too far for comfort. Shrugging off the ache, Snape determined to go make his rest and shut the door behind him. Immediately, he was in agony.

The bond around him burned and writhed against his skin. It was as though it was a living thing and shutting the door had trapped it and made it wild. The cord had become a fiery snake and seemed to shriek in protest of the separation. It was another moment before Snape realized that he was not only hearing the shrieks of the bond, but also human screams from within the room.

Summoning his strength, Snape rose up from the floor where he had knelt down in pain and threw open the door. It was like pouring a cool stream over him and he breathed in relief even as he rushed to the bed. Potter’s screams had died as soon as he was back in the room and the young wizard was currently huddled on his side, breathing in large gulps of air. The sheets had been thrown back in his panic and Potter’s eyes were distant and unfocused.

Snape quickly cast the shades open to bring in more light. He looked over Potter’s wounds and was aghast. Several of the tears that Pomfrey had not been able to heal completely were now open and oozing blood once more. Spotting the travel bag of potions on the desk nearby, Snape opened it and quickly pulled out a bottle of healing balm. Scooping out an ample amount, Snape grabbed Potter’s arm and quickly smoothed it over the first cut.

Potter jumped at the first contact and he turned to focus on Snape. He didn’t say a word, which surprised the Potions Master, and only observed Snape for a long moment before lowering his eyes to the bedspread. For whatever reason the young wizard chose to remain silent, Snape couldn’t tell, but he was satisfied with it. He methodically spread the balm over the other complaints and Potter followed every turn and prompt that Snape indicated, all the time avoiding the older wizard’s gaze.

It didn’t take very long for Potter’s silence to become as irritating as his regular chatter and Snape covered the last tear with the balm and turned away. He busied himself with organizing his potions from the clutter of the bag onto the desk and began to sort out which might be needed first. He would probably need a lot of restoratives, of which he had several but would need some more later…

“Professor Snape?”

Snape paused over the vials. “What is it, Potter?”

The young wizard sounded so hesitant that Snape could hardly believe that it was Potter. “What happened?”

Snape held back an exasperated sigh and forced himself to turn around. He pulled the chair back away from the bed and sat down, looking hard at Potter. Potter averted his gaze and Snape wondered whether Potter realized that they had stabilized the magic. “What do you remember?”

A sigh. “I remember going through the bonding spell. Did everything work as it should?”

“Yes. You are no longer leaking any dangerous magic.”

“Good,” Potter’s voice was a whisper. He looked down at the bedspread for a minute, but Snape knew not to get hopeful. The brat was sure to have more questions than that. “What… what just happened, then?”

Did Potter think that the burning was his own fault? Snape pondered the use of such a belief for a moment before realizing that it would not be a beneficial manner in which to begin their two-month solitude. The prospect of two months of close contact with Potter nearly made Snape twitch. “The bond seems to have tighter limits than previously assumed,” Snape informed Potter, deciding not to mention Madame Pomfrey’s advice to remain in the same room. “We will both be restricted to the same room upwards of two months.”

“Two months?” Potter asked, startled.

“I am not looking forward to this arrangement any more than you are, Potter,” Snape said, dryly. “I only ask that you refrain from making yourself a nuisance until such a time as you can leave or Lupin finds some alternative to the situation.”

Potter glanced at Snape briefly before returning his gaze to the bed. “Has Remus gone back to Hogwarts?”

There was that spark of annoyance. “Lupin left with Madame Pomfrey,” Snape stated, not bothering to go into it any further. Who cared where the werewolf was, so long as he wasn’t here?

“Ah,” was all Potter responded with.

Snape turned to look at the table of potions and made a pretense of checking its contents. Snape wasn’t entirely sure what to make of Potter. He seemed a lot quieter than he used to be, but it may just be that he was still recovering. Snape recalled that it was probably sometime in the afternoon and that they would need to eat soon.

“Dot,” Snape called out and the house elf appeared immediately. She saw that Potter was awake and gave him a wide grin, which he returned with some amusement though it seemed that Potter was still avoiding eye contact with everyone. Snape decided not to call him on it quite yet and filed that information away.

“At your service, Master Snape,” Dot gave a short deferential bow. Snape raised an eyebrow. She hadn’t done the full formalities since he was a child.

“What time is it?”

“It is one o’clock in the afternoon, Master Snape,” she replied promptly.

Snape considered this for a moment. “We will require a late lunch. Soup and sandwiches should be adequate.”

“Would Master Snape or Master Harry like to request any particular arrangement?” Dot asked the question to both Snape and Potter, surprising the young wizard into looking at her. He looked away quickly, flushed, and shook his head in the negative.

Snape looked curiously at the house elf. Master Harry, again. He would have to ask Dot about it later. “Nothing too strong,” was all the additional information he volunteered. Dot made another bow and left for the kitchens.

Both wizards were silent as they waited for lunch. Soon a table appeared next to the bed with a meat and potatoes stew and small cut sandwiches of many kinds. Ignoring Potter, Snape pulled the chair up to the table and helped himself to the sumptuous lunch that felt like a feast after all of the latest events. It was only halfway through the meal that Snape noticed that Potter had barely touched any of it. He had poured himself a small bowl of stew and put one sandwich on his plate that looked the same as when it got there.

Snape narrowed his eyes at the young wizard. “Is there something the matter, Potter?”

Potter’s hand twitched. “No, professor.”

“Don’t lie, Potter. These first few days will be hazardous to both of us if you persist in being stubborn,” Snape snapped.

Potter kept his gaze on his bowl of stew. “I’m just not very hungry, professor.”

Snape fought the urge to snap at Potter again. “You have not eaten anything since a little before six o’clock last night. Even supposing that you managed to have a meal before the battle, which I am disinclined to believe… you could not have eaten since lunch yesterday, at the earliest,” he stated, clinically. “Therefore, there must be something wrong, Potter. What is it?”

Potter had an embarrassed look on his face. “I haven’t been eating much at all, lately, professor. I’m just not used to regular meals anymore.”

Snape’s eyes were piercing as they now studied Potter’s thin frame. It was true that the young wizard was trim, but he had seemed strong enough. “Have you been taking nutrient supplements, Potter?”

“Yes, sir.”

“For how long?”

Potter said quietly, “For about five months.”

Snape pushed back from the table and walked over to his potions. Looking through the vials, he picked up a pale red potion and a nearly black concoction. Moving back towards the table, Snape reached over and took Potter’s bowl. He emptied the black vial into the stew and stirred it until the color returned to normal. Placing it back onto the table, Snape put the pale red potion next to the bowl.

“Drink first, then eat your stew,” Snape instructed. He returned to his own meal, but kept a sharp eye on Potter. The young wizard took up the potion and drank it back. The moment it hit the back of his throat, Potter put on a sour expression and coughed. With a general glare at the table, he picked up the bowl with determination and tried a spoonful. After the first swallow, the stew seemed to agree with him and he managed to pick his way through the majority of the bowl. After finishing the stew, Potter seemed to relax and he reclined back onto the bed.

“Sir?” Potter questioned. “I recognized the nutrient supplement, but what was the pale potion for?”

Snape looked at Potter with some surprise. Even knowing that he had been taking the supplements for months, Snape was surprised to find that the brat so inept at Potions had actually remembered what it looked like at its strongest potency.

“It was to inhibit the nutrients from lingering in your system beyond what is necessary with your metabolism,” Snape explained in a condescending voice. “Anything weaker would have made you sick, so you will have to adjust to normal foods slowly.”

Potter hummed back at Snape lazily, not acknowledging Snape’s tone. Irked at the response, Snape was about to take Potter to task when he saw the young wizard’s eyes drifting closed. He bit his tongue and looked away in a huff. Not even through the first day and the brat was irritating him. Snape dreaded the next couple of months. Maybe he could just douse Potter with sleep potions or put a silencing charm on him when he got too annoying. Well, Snape looked at the sleeping form, as soon as he healed the brat, anyway.

Taking out his wand, Snape levitated the table and chair further away from the bed. He sat down and slowly ate one more sandwich. Looking around the room, the fact that he would have to stay in here began to sink in with a deeper impact. He would need to bring in a few things and change the room to make the situation more bearable. Standing near the center of the room, Snape considered the space.

Snape considered the dimensions. He would either have to expand the room itself or shrink some of the furniture in order to fit his own bed and dressers in here. Since he would be forced to remain here for a couple of months, unless that mangy wolf found another solution, it would be infinitely better to make the room larger. It would also be beneficial to place personal wards around this room and possibly the Master Suite as well. In fact, Snape could simply remove the walls between the two rooms and create wards for it as a single space.

Glancing over at the bed, Snape considered whether or not he should attempt the project now. Potter was the least irritating while asleep, by far, and he did not want to interrupt that until it was safe to drug the brat. Mentally cursing counter-properties in potions, Snape softly called out for Dot. If he couldn’t rearrange the room, then now was the time for some answers.

“At your service, Master Snape,” Dot appeared with the traditional bow once more.

Snape sat back down in the chair and motioned Dot nearer to him. “Why have you gone back to the traditional greetings, Dot?” Snape didn’t waste time in asking.

“Because Master Snape has been bonded to Master Harry,” Dot replied simply.

Snape blinked. And blinked again. He hadn’t expected quite so simple an answer. He did recall that after certain ceremonies and inheritance, there was a change in formalities and address in house elves, but under the circumstances, he didn’t really believe this bonding qualified. “You know, Dot, that I was obligated to bond to Potter… it will be reversed as soon as possible.”

“Obligation does not change the fact that Master Snape is still bonded, Master Snape,” Dot clarified. “It is customary to treat the Master and his bonded with absolute respect.”

“And I thought you knew me too well for that,” Snape muttered and rubbed his hand over his face. Irritated, Snape wondered what other magical accounts and circumstances would be affected by this soul bonding. He would have to make sure that his legal documents hadn’t been irrevocably altered, though there may not be much he could do to reverse it at this point.

“Very well,” Snape muttered. “You mentioned that you could see the bond between myself and Potter?”

“Yes, Master Snape.”

“What does it look like?”

Dot paused for a moment to look back and forth between Snape and Potter. Snape waited for her to get a grasp on how to describe it. “It is like Master Snape is here and then he is there. And Master Harry is there and then he is here. And the Masters’ hearts beat together and connect from wherever they are. That is the best that Dot knows how to describe it, Master Snape.”

“Magical creatures see magic differently than most wizards,” Snape murmured thoughtfully. Turning to Dot, he asked, “Is there anything particular about the bond that I should know or may be important?”

She took a moment to check between the two again. “Dot is not sure that she understands what Master Snape is asking.”

“Just whether there is anything strange or dangerous about the bond,” Snape clarified.

“Dot has never seen a bond so strong before, Master Snape,” Dot said, admiringly. “It is very beautiful, Master Snape.”

Snape was taken aback, “What?”

“Master Snape’s bond to Master Harry is very powerful, Master Snape.”

What would this mean? Snape wondered. Could all of the magic that adapted to Voldemort’s soul have made the bond stronger by its sheer abundance? Oh, Merlin… “Dot, will it be difficult to break this bond?”

“With a strong bond, Dot believes it may take more effort to break it, Master Snape.”

“But not impossible?” Snape dreaded the answer. To be soul-bonded to Harry Potter for life…

“Not impossible, Master Snape,” Dot agreed, with some tone of reluctance.

Snape narrowed an eye at the small house elf and she blushed as she looked down at the floor. Deciding to ignore her dissatisfaction, Snape gave her instructions to very carefully pack most of his potions equipment and bring it to the sitting room. He also arranged for her to come back as soon as Potter was awake so that Dot could assist with the changes to the Manor. House elf magic would be more effective with the magic of the Manor they cared for and were tied to.

Dot disappeared to go to work and Snape wondered idly what he could do to pass the time when he was restricted to one room. Moving over to the travel bag, Snape rummaged to see if he had left any ingredients or tools in the bag itself. He met with some success and found enough to mix up one of the weaker restoratives that he would likely need later on. Snape quietly went to work and tried to ignore the other presence not three feet away.

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