The Wrath of Revenge

Chapter Four: Healing, Memories, and then some...

It took a while for Snape to realize that the annoyingly loud, wailing sound enveloping him was coming out from his own mouth. It took him even longer to close his mouth and stop screaming (or whatever he was doing).

By this time, Harry had stopped screaming himself, and was now standing horrified in Snape's bedchamber.

"What...are you doing...Potter?" he asked in a low voice.

Harry gulped. Bloody hell, he's HURT, and he is asking me why I am here. Is he even capable of rational thinking? What do I tell him; that I heard him screaming his head off in the halls? Then he'd take points off for being out of bed, him being Snape. Should I tell him about my dream? He was in the dream and it hurt a ton. It must have been much worse in reality. I wonder who the man that did this was? Wait, it can't have been Voldemort? Could it have been? Anyway, why is he asking about me? He must be in awful pain. Then why doesn't he look it? All of these thoughts passed through Harry's mind in the time span of a few seconds. Finally he decided what to say.

"How come you don't look like you're in that much pain?" he said with a shaky voice, answering a question with another question.

It took a few moments for the question to register in Snape's mind, another sign of his concussion and injuries.

"Because," he croaked, "I put a pain relieving Charm on myself, but its effects are fading..." In reality, he was becoming too weak to sustain it because of his injuries but Snape did not realize that.

"Unless you'd be so kind to put one on me?" he said sarcastically, slightly returning to the "greasy-git Snape". He didn't mention that not even a pain relieving charm would work on reducing the after effects of the Cruciatus Curse.

"Sure Dad," he said automatically.

Oops. Oops, it just slipped out, thought Harry, covering his mouth. It seemed like memories and habits from his other life were crowding his mind even more, nowadays.

A few seconds lapsed, where as, Snape was completely silent.

Then a slightly clenched moan, and "Potter!" was heard in the dungeons.

Harry was jolted into consciousness, and he flinched. Harry raised his wand and said,

"Relivius!"

There was a white flash of light that blinded Harry momentarily. When Harry looked back, Snape was only a crumpled form with his eyes closed. Harry panicked, and thinking that his spell had gone wrong, ran out the room.

Not thinking about anything else except guilt, Harry ran up the stairs and through the halls. I killed him, I killed him, were the only words that repeated in his mind. I killed Cedric by asking him to take the cup with me, and now I've killed Snape because of a stupid, haywire spell that I cast...Harry bit his lip and ran all the more faster towards Dumbledore's office and bedchambers.

Suddenly, he screeched to a halt and turned left, towards Dumbledore's office. Please, let the password be the same, he prayed. He rounded a corner and almost collided with the stone gargoyle.

"Lite Sugar...Quills," he gasped out, panting. To his relief, the stone gargoyle moved aside to let him pass.

As he jumped onto the moving spiral staircase, he stood still, wanting to catch his breath.

The instant Harry got to the landing, he flung open the office door and skidded towards the far stone wall. He then proceeded to bang on the wall like a little kid, which wasn't very smart because the stone wall was infinitely stronger than Harry's hand. After a few seconds, Harry's hand was red and scratched with imprints of the stone wall. Harry finally realized that his attempts were futile. There was only one other way to wake up Dumbledore, and that was what had worked last night. Harry took a deep breath.

"PROFESSOR DUMBLEDORE!!" he yelled, his voice cracking.

Before he could raise his voice again, a very rumpled looking Dumbledore stomped out the hidden room behind the wall.

"Ah, Harry," he asked a bit sleepily, "What is it that you would like now?"

The brave face that was well known to the world, crumpled into one of a child's, still young, too young to be burdened with the responsibility of saving the whole wizarding world from a greater evil. For Harry suddenly became a fourteen year-old, lonely and looking all like the world had just come crashing down on him.

"Harry?" Dumbledore was suddenly sharp awake and briskly enfolding Harry in a small hug.

"Something has happened, hasn't it?"

Harry nodded meekly.

"Something that has to do with Voldemort?" asked Dumbledore. He was partially right.

"No," replied Harry shakily, "More to do with Professor Snape..."

Once he had gotten that part out, words spilled from his mouth in a rush.

"I, I--I had a dream and I was going to get a dreamless sleep potion from Madame Pomfrey, but then I heard screaming and it was coming from the Potions classroom. It was Snape, and--and he was..." Harry couldn't find the word that described Snape's former condition so he settled for a simple word, "injured. And then he asked me t--to cast a pain-relieving charm on him...I stood there for a few seconds, Professor, and then he yelled at me, so I realized what I had to do and cast it.... But--but when the spell hit him, it was a white flash and I didn't know if that was good or bad, and he was just lying there...crumpled...and... I think I might have killed him because of the stupid charm that I cast wrong," he whispered at the end.

Dumbledore had somehow changed into a set of cerulean blue robes and was hurriedly going down the stairs once he had heard Harry's explanation.

Harry struggled to catch up with him and stuttered feebly along the way.

"Hush now Harry," said Dumbledore gently as he walked, "I am sure that everything will be all right. And I seriously doubt a haywire pain-relieving charm could kill Severus Snape. I am more worried about his injuries though."

Harry was still too shocked and he remained silent, for the remainder of the time it took for them to get to Snape's office.

When they reached Snape's office, Dumbledore seemed unperturbed by the blood on the floor and simple walked towards the bookcase in which the secret entrance was hidden.

Unfortunately for Harry, he had slammed the bookcase shut when he had ran out in a panic, and thus had no idea how to get back into Snape's chambers. Dumbledore stepped up and said, "Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster," to the bookcase. It seemed that every piece of furniture and object in Hogwarts knew Dumbledore and granted him respect. What Harry didn't know was that the bookcase that stood on its hinges guarding the entranceway to Snape's private chambers, was one of the most intelligent pieces of furniture in the Hogwarts School. It knew when the person knocking at the door was not wanted, and when people needed to be let into its master's room.

With a shuddering sigh and quite a lot of dust, a rather small book was ejected from the bookcase. Harry and Dumbledore sneezed and coughed. It turned out to be the score for the piano part of a song. Dumbledore opened this book to the first page and saw that the first three bars were marked up. Harry heard Dumbledore sigh and whispered half-heartedly, "Oh, Severus,"

"Headmaster?" queried Harry.

Dumbledore looked up with a small smile and twinkling blue eyes and said, "I've figured out the password,"

He tapped the right rhythm out and the bookcase opened. Albus Dumbledore quickly ran down the staircase and entered the room where Snape was lying.

Severus Snape was crumpled forward in an awkward position, and Dumbledore adjusted the man so that he was lying flat on his back. This gave Dumbledore a good estimate of Snape's grave injuries and he hurried forward to tend to them.

"Wait, er..." said Harry. "I think he Summoned a beaker of some sort of potion towards him, which might explain the glass shards."

"Reparo lagenam vitrum!" said Dumbledore.

The glass shards floated in the air, turned back into a beaker with a few drops of potion left in it and sped towards Dumbledore's outstretched hand. He caught it deftly.

"Oh God," said Dumbledore after inspecting the remaining contents of the beaker. He then threw the beaker aside carelessly, forgetting that it was glass. They both flinched at the sound of broken glass, but this time the mess was on the floor rather than on Snape's body.

Dumbledore held his hands slightly above Snape's body and a faint blue glow radiated from them.

"Don't worry, Harry, he is far from being dead. I was able to heal most of the external injuries but I fear that his legs have to be looked at by a Healer because he has extreme amounts of strong healing potion on them. I, myself, am at a loss to heal these, because even though I am fairly skilled at healing, it was never my strongest subject."

Dumbledore sat down on one of the dark green armchairs with a fwump, and immediately stood back up. He then picked up the several large and pointy books that he had sat down on, and placed them on the floor next to the chair. He then sat back down again with a contented sigh.

"Do sit down Harry, I'm sure Severus won't mind,"

Harry was quite sure that Professor Snape would indeed mind, shook his head furiously, and remained standing.

"Well, if you insist on standing Harry, would you mind finding the Floo powder please? It should be on the mantelpiece," said Dumbledore.

Harry walked over to the crackling fire and looked on the mantelpiece. It was bare, except for the antique square clock that sat on the right-hand edge and a statue of a lion made out of gold, with a tiny ruby embedded in the forehead.

"Um, Professor?" said Harry uncertainly.

Dumbledore noticed this new dilemma quite quickly and walked over to the mantelpiece as well.

"Foolish of me really," he said smiling, "I'd forgotten the dislike of Floo that he has, and Severus isn't even connected to the Floo network. Ah well. No matter. We'll make do with what we have," concluded Dumbledore.

This left Harry wondering exactly what they had, but he nodded anyway.

Dumbledore held out his hand, palm facing upwards, and conjured a dark neon blue flame in his hand.

"Adept Patrick Evans!" he announced to his hand. The blue flame bobbed up and down floating above Dumbledore's hand.

Quite a lot of static sound emanated from the flame in Dumbledore's hand.

Then, a wavering voice said, "Hello?"

"Ah, yes, Patrick, this is Albus."

"Albus...nope, don't know any Albus's....wait, Albus...Dumbledore?"

"Yes," replied Dumbledore in a cheery, good-morning sort of voice.

"Are you calling from a portable? There's this echoy sound I am hearing. And a lot of static! What do you want? Do you even know what time it is?" came the grumpy-at-being-woken-up-from-a-sound-sleep reply.

Dumbledore laughed. Then, in a graver voice said, "I've a patient for you. I'm quite at a loss for healing him."

"How serious are his injuries?" asked the voice.

"I'm assuming they're quite severe, since even the great Albus Dumbledore can't heal them," the voice added.

Then, without any affirmative indication from Dumbledore, the voice said firmly,

"I'm coming over. Can you open a connection for Floo?"

"Actually, Patrick, right now, where we are is sort of inaccessible by Floo..." Dumbledore trailed off.

"WHAT!! Then how am I going to get there to HELP your patient?" screeched the reply.

"Patience. Apparate to the Edge and walk," said Dumbledore soothingly.

"Walk?! Walk. Fine, I'll be there in a minute,"

Then, the flame in Dumbledore's hand turned green and vanished.

Harry asked tentatively, "What's the Edge, sir?"

"The Edge, Harry, is what we commonly refer to as the Apparation boundaries of Hogwarts."

After a few moments, "Will he come here?" asked Harry.

"Most likely, he'll try to rip the wards first," chuckled Dumbledore.

The instant the words escaped his lips there was a loud tearing sound. A face with brown hair and blue eyes appeared to be poking out of thin air. He nodded to Dumbledore and then promptly disappeared. There was now a slight tear in the magic shields that surrounded Hogwarts.

Suddenly a man on a very large broomstick came through the wall at a tremendous speed, going through the other wall like a ghost. Then, the man came back through the wall that he had recently disappeared through and stopped in front of Dumbledore. The man had curly locks of brown hair, large blue eyes and was dressed in a pure white robe that hurt to look at.

Harry was beginning to think this was all a bad dream. And his head hurt.

"Patrick, I do wish you would be kinder to the spells here," Dumbledore said, pointing to the rip that was quite noticeable.

"I'll fix it," came the reply, although a bit grudgingly.

"NO! Last time you did that you managed to do more damage to the poor wall," Dumbledore hurriedly halted him.

With a wave of his hand, the Headmaster swiftly repaired the damage.

"So, is this the lad you wanted me for?" asked the Healer, looking Harry over.

"No, that's Harry Potter, Patrick," said Dumbledore.

"Blimey! Pleased to meet you." The Healer stuck out his hand in greeting.

"Harry, this is Adept Patrick Evans," introduced Dumbledore.

"Aw, Albus, you know I hate that title. Adept! It sounds like you're fairly good at something when really it took a hell of a hard time achieving it," said the Adept. "Anyways, tis more accurate to call me an Experienced Healer," he said to Harry. "Although," he added as an afterthought, "it is my official title."

"Ok," responded Harry.

"Well then. Lets get down to business. Where's the real patient then?" asked Evans.

Dumbledore pointed to Snape.

Evans screamed.

Harry wanted to sleep.

It would be a very long night indeed.