Whelp

*Chapter 23*: Chapter 23

Whelp -- Chapter 23

By jharad17

Disclaimer: None of this is mine. Honest. She's rich, I'm not.

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"Did you shame him into it? Did you know he was afraid? Get out of my sight! Harry could have died because of you! Get out! GO!"

Casting a last, tearful glance at Harry, Draco slipped off his chair and fled.

Severus held Harry a little tighter, but even as he watched the other boy scramble out of the infirmary, he sent Nelli after him, not wanting him to come to any harm. If nothing else, Lucius would kill him.

"I cannot believe," Poppy said, just to the right of him, "that I just heard words like that come out of your mouth, Severus Snape. And to your own godson!"

Surprised, as she rarely used such a tone with him, he turned to the Medi-witch, and immediately shrank away from the rage in her eyes. "Poppy, I—"

"I did not even have a chance to look the boy over!" she spat, her voice quiet for Harry's sake, he imagined, since she looked like she wanted to scream at him. "And don't you think he felt badly enough already?! He needed comforting, not that . . . that, whatever it is you call it!"

"Poppy, I—" he started again, only to be interrupted again.

"I don't want to hear it. I will care for Harry here, and you will find your godson and apologize!"

He raised one hand to her, in supplication? He wanted to speak, dammit! He had every right to dole out harsh words when they were merited, he did! Then why did he feel like he was seven years old again, himself?

"And don't you even think of coming back here until you do! I won't have such horrible things said in my infirmary." With that, the Medi-with aimed her wand at him and hissed, "Now, Severus!"

"But Harry—"

"Will be fine with some rest. Draco will not."

Her wand did not waver, and for the first time since he'd met the woman, almost sixteen years ago, when his Head of House had sent him up here, on the first day he arrived at Hogwarts, unnourished and sporting bruises and a broken arm courtesy of his own father, he actually feared what she might do to him. Struck hard by remembrance of that day, and the father he had always feared and hated, Severus slumped back against the headboard. He nodded, ashamed, and slid out from behind his son, lying the boy gently against his pillows.

"If he wakes . . ."

"I'll be here, and I'll tell him you'll return." Poppy's tone softened as soon as she'd seen he was doing what she wanted, or maybe she guessed at the reason for the heat in his cheeks.

She had seen him for what he was. He had never wanted to become the man his father had been, and yet, at first provocation . . . How was he ever going to teach at this school? he wondered as he made his way to the infirmary doors. Student were like to be unruly – they certainly had been in his day – and would he treat them all thusly?

Worse, how could he ever be a good parent to Harry, if he blew up the first time he was faced with a child's unthinking foolishness? What if it had been Harry who had decided to get the brooms? Would he have cast such aspersions on his own son? A sinking feeling inside told him more than he wanted to of his own nature. Doubts of his fitness as a parent reared in him again, and he pushed them ruthlessly to the side. Now was not the time to wallow in his own inadequacies. Now was the time to go grovel for a boy.

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"Draco." Severus kept his tone as gentle as he could. He was still angry, but his upset with the boy was tempered with his knowledge that his godson did not deserve all he had said earlier.

From where he huddled on his bed, in the room he was to share with Harry, Draco made no sign he had heard anyone say his name. So Severus said it again, and this time, added a, "Look at me, please."

The boy swiped his arm across his face before turning over to do so, and Severus understood more with that one gesture than he could have with any words just how well he had failed. Even now, Draco needed to appear strong, and without feelings, a legacy of the elder Malfoy that Severus had hoped to erase. He hoped now to just be given the chance.

Draco's face was splotchy, with the cut he had sustained starting to bruise around the edges, though at least it was not bleeding anymore. And his hair – generally perfectly coifed – was still messy from his broom flight and race through the castle. But the boy didn't shed tears in front of him, and held his gaze steadily, with a touch of wariness, as if expecting more scorn to be heaped upon him. The very idea pierced Severus' heart.

"I . . . spoke out of turn, earlier," Severus said to the boy. "I was . . . upset, about Harry being hurt, and I took it out on you."

Draco stared at him, eyes narrowing, but did not reply.

Severus sighed. No doubt Poppy would know if he said the actual words. "And I am sorry. I should not have given vent to my anger in such a fashion, especially when you were still in need of medical attention."

Pale eyebrows went up over grey eyes like a summer storm. "Is Harry all right?"

"He will be. You . . . you did well, in coming to find me. Much longer and I might have not been in time to get him breathing again. But he will recover. He's sleeping now."

Draco swallowed. "I really never meant for him to get hurt," he whispered.

"I know," Severus said, almost as quietly. He gestured to the boy's bed. "May I sit down?"

"Yes, sir." Draco scooted along the bed till his back was against the wall, and watched Severus sit with a mixture of surprise and dread still playing across his face. Such openness would fade in the coming years, he knew. Lucius would not allow his son's emotions to be read so easily.

"You and I need to have a frank discussion about what happened today," he started, but at a worried look from Draco, he continued, "But I think that will wait until Harry is able to take part as well. He is responsible for his own actions, after all, and I would be remiss in not addressing his lack of judgment as well as yours."

Noting the widening of his godson's eyes, he nodded. "Harry is capable of making his own choices and could have chosen not to go with you." Even as he said the words, he wasn't altogether sure they were true, after what the boy had been through with those Muggles. But if Harry wasn't able to stand up for himself now, he would be, as soon as Severus could do anything about it.

"However," he continued, "he has been through a great deal, and as a result, he may sometimes go along with activities he would normally be adverse to, because he doesn't want to lose you as a friend. And because, I believe, he admires you and wants you to think well of him. So I must ask you, Draco, if he appears especially reluctant of something – such as flying above a large body of water – to please respect that and not push him unduly." He held the boy's gaze, and hoped he was doing the right thing. "Do you understand?"

After a long moment, Draco nodded. "Yes, Uncle Sev." He looked down at his hands, then up again quickly. "He was scared, but I . . . I thought it was because he really didn't know how to fly or something." He drew a deep breath, and the look that came over his face was filled with more grownup understanding than any other child he'd ever seen . . . except perhaps for Harry. "It was bad, wasn't it? Where he was before you got him."

Severus studied the boy for a long time before answering. Finally, he realized that, no matter his faults, Draco was not his father, and he had willingly offered Harry his friendship. Being honest now would not damage whatever lay between them. "Yes, Draco. It was bad."

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Harry woke slowly to the familiar smell of disinfectant, like his cupboard sometimes, after opening a new bottle of cleaner. For a moment, he panicked – He was back there! Father had sent him back! – until he opened his eyes and, even through the fuzzy haze of no glasses, saw sunlight streaming through high windows. He gulped a breath and made himself let it out slow. He was in a bed. In the infirmary. At Hogwarts.

Not the cupboard.

Then he remembered the rest, the deep water and darkness and screaming while water filled his mouth and nose, just like baths when Aunt Petunia tore him apart with her eyes as she held him under and he tried and tried to claw his way out. . . .

He had to get up, and get away from here, and find Father, and Draco! Frantic, he pushed up on his elbows, but pain shot through his chest, and he gasped for breath. It hurt a little, going in, but he clamped his teeth together and breathed through his nose instead, slowly.

Madam Pomfrey, a large blur in white, was by his bed in the next second. She leaned over and smiled at him. "Harry, dear. Good to see you're awake. Don't move around now, your ribs don't need that." Plumping up his pillows, she managed to get him to a sitting up position without it hardly hurting at all.

"Thank you, ma'am," he said, and his voice sounded funny. Rough, like he'd been eating sand.

"Oh, there now, dear," she said and patted him lightly on the cheek. He flinched, unable to help it, and she moved her hand away. "How are you feeling?" she asked. "Does your chest hurt at all?"

"No, ma'am," Harry said, 'cause he could let Father know when he was hurt. But school nurses were right out. He knew that.

"Your shoulder?" Madam Pomfrey pressed, and held her stick – her wand – up by his arm and swished it around a bit.

"No, ma'am." He wanted desperately to ask where his father was, and if Draco was all right, but questions were right out, too. He could ask Hagrid questions, because Father had told him about Hagrid and how he liked to talk. But not Madam Pomfrey.

"Let me get you something for your throat, Harry. You swallowed a lot of water, and it's bound to be scratchy."

"It's fine, ma'am. I'm okay, thanks." He scooted over again, ready to get up and make a run for it, but the woman stepped in front of him at the side of the bed and put her hands on her hips.

"And where do you think you're going, young man?" she asked, but her voice as still kind, so Harry only flinched a little. "Your shoulder is still healing, as well as your ribs. You'll rest right there through the night, if I have anything to say about it, and you can go back home in the morning."

Harry's mouth dried out. There was his answer, then, for where his father was. He'd been really bad, probably gotten Draco hurt, too, and Father was sending him away. But he wasn't even going to say so, himself. Suddenly having no where to go, he nodded at Madam Pomfrey and slid his legs back on the bed. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes. He blinked them away, quick. Tears weren't allowed. He knew that. "Yes, ma'am."

"Good boy. Get some rest," she said, and left him alone.

A horribly deep hole opened up beneath him and his stomach was first to fall into it, followed by his chest, and then the rest of him. He was alone again, and there was no use crawling out of the hole any more.

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The first thing Severus noticed when he entered the infirmary, this time with Draco in tow, was that Harry was awake. The second thing he noted, when he strode closer to the boy, was that he had not seen such a blank look on Harry's face since he'd had first taken him from the Dursleys. He frowned as he stopped next to the bed, and Harry did not turn to look at him. Well, his glasses were missing, perhaps that was it.

"Harry?" he said quietly, and the boy blinked, but still didn't look at him. His face looked even tinier without the aid of his glasses, and his eyes were . . . not glazed, exactly, but looking at something distant, that Severus could not hope to see. Severus sat down on the side of the bed and took one of Harry's hand in his own.

"Harry, look at me, please." He was momentarily struck by the phrase, minutely different from the one he'd spoken to Draco only half an hour ago. Both boys needed to be handled with care, he knew, and he once more felt out of his depth. When his son still did not break that distant gaze, Severus felt the first stirrings of fear. He squeezed Harry's hand and spoke more firmly. "Harry. Look at me."

Draco stepped forward. "Harry?" he said. "Are you all right? I'm sorry about the lake, honest. I didn't think the squid . . ." He shot a glance at Severus. "I mean, I'm just sorry."

Harry blinked again and drew his head to the side as if he were half asleep, but his gaze was aimed at Draco, whose face was still pinched with worry. "Draco?"

"Yeah, Harry. Are you still sleepy?"

Harry shook his head. "You okay?"

"I'm fine. I was worried about you." Draco smiled a little. "You had us all worried, even Nelli."

"Nelli?"

Severus watched the back and forth between his godson and Harry, and wondered if Poppy had given the boy too much sleeping draught; he seemed truly out of it, and had yet to acknowledge that Severus was even there. He hated to admit that to be shunned like this hurt, a lot.

"The house-elf that was watching us. She pulled you out of the water, while I went to get your father. Do you remember?"

"My father's dead," Harry mumbled, and the words hit Severus like a Centaur's kick to the chest. "Car crash . . ."

"No! Harry—" Draco started, but Severus interrupted.

"Draco, if you would be so kind," he said, and nodded his chin at the chairs near the doors. The boy gave him a glare, but moved away like he'd been told. Meanwhile, Severus put his hands on Harry's shoulders and looked into those green eyes he'd so loved on Lily's face. "Harry, I am your father, and I am right here."

"Sending me back," the boy mumbled again, his gaze still not focused.

"I am doing no such thing!" He wanted to shake the boy, but instead merely tightened his grip on the bony shoulders. "You are my son, and I will never send you away."

"M'hand got wet. Disobeyed. Have to go back if I disobey."

"No, Harry. No." Merlin, is that what the boy thought? That he was here on a temporary basis, that the least infraction of rules would have made Severus send him back to those god-awful people? How was he going to make Harry understand otherwise? His voice came out rough when he said, "Listen to me well, Harry. I don't care what you do, you could do anything at all, but I will never, never send you away. I will never send you back to those people. You are my son and always will be. Do you understand me?"

Light flickered in those green eyes, briefly, and Severus rejoiced when Harry truly met his gaze at last. So much trust rested in there, still, and hope, and Severus vowed to become worthy of it or die trying. "Never send me 'way?"

"Never, " Severus agreed in a whisper and pulled the boy close. Harry wrapped thin arms around his neck and buried his face in Severus' shoulder. As silent tears drenched his neck, Severus pressed his cheek to the side of his son's head and the tightness in his own chest eased, just a bit. Ah, what anguish, love.

TBC . . .

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Next chapter: Laying down the rules . . .

A/N: And the question of why Harry hates baths is finally answered! Thank you to everyone who's read and reviewed! If you have any questions, or comments or corrections, please let me know. Next chapter should be out by Wednesday. Probably.