Pikuach Nefesh: or, Dispensations

Pikuach Nefesh

Poppy Pomfrey was down in the dungeons that night, escaping from the field of her latest failures. She had tried her best with Dumbledore, but she feared it wouldn't be enough, and she could taste the fear and failure as a metallic tang in her mouth. She undid the button at her left cuff, and rolled her sleeve up so that her entire lower arm was exposed. She brought the scalpel up to the inside of her elbow. She hesitated. Part of her mind was screaming at her that this was wrong, but then the other voices started up again. You're a failure, a bloody damned failure, that's all you are. You don't even have the nerve to take yourself out, you coward. She pressed the scalpel into her skin until it drew blood, and then started to draw it down toward her wrist.

Severus Snape turned the corner and saw Pomfrey with the scalpel in her hand and at her arm. He tackled her from behind as if he were a Muggle rugby star, instead of a wizard and a Hogwarts professor. He grabbed her right elbow, and pulled it away from her body. "Drop it, Poppy," he ordered her. She shook her head. He took ahold of her right wrist and started twisting it. "Drop it," he ordered her. She tried hitting him with the scalpel, but he ignored the cuts it made in his skin and hers. She finally dropped the scalpel, and it rattled on the floor.

When he saw the cut on the inside of her elbow and the bloodstained scalpel, he cursed. He healed the wound with a wave of his wand and a word. He then picked her up and ran with her to his quarters. He had to get some Exsanguis Potion into her, and he wasn't going to waste time taking her to the Hospital Wing.

Poppy Pomfrey woke up in Severus Snape's bed. "I can't even commit suicide right," she muttered. "I'm a bloody failure at that too."

"Hush," Severus told her. "Drink up." He brought the glass of Exsanguis Potion up to her lips. She closed her mouth. "Drink it," he ordered her. She shook her head. Potion spilled over her face, her veil, and her ruined uniform. "Drink it, or I'll make you drink it, Poppy," Severus threatened. Poppy shook her head again. He grabbed the sides of her face, trying to open her mouth. She grabbed her wand, and brought it up to his rib cage. She hit him with a Bone-breaker Curse. "Ahh! Curse you, woman! Very well. Imperius."

Poppy felt the too-familiar fog come over her mind again, stirring up more memories of things she would have preferred to forget. She tried frantically to remember how to fight it off, to clear her mind from the fog. She opened her mouth at Severus' command, and drank down the remainder of the Exsanguis Potion.

"Finite Incantatem," Severus said. "Now. Are you going to tell me what brought this about?"

Poppy stared back at Severus as he loomed over her. "How dare you," she spat. "How dare you use that filthy spell on me?"

Snape' mouth twitched. "I believe the Muggle term is pikuach nefesh, that is, breaking the law is permissible to save a life," he replied.

Her chest heaved and her breath wheezed as she glared back at him. She hit him in the face, and jumped out of the bed. She ran for the door, but he was faster, and caught her. He wrestled with her as she tried to get out. She screamed, remembering the last time she had been placed under Imperius before this.

He dropped her, asking, "What is wrong, Poppy?" She tried to dart out the door, but he moved his arm to block her escape.

Poppy's chest was heaving. She looked up at Severus. "What triggered this, Poppy?' he asked her.

"Dumbledore," Poppy replied. "I tried my best for him, and I'm so afraid that it won't be enough."

Snape sighed. "He'll be fine, Poppy. You did your usual excellent job."

"And what about the next time?" Poppy shrilled back at him. "I was at the limits of my skill this time, Severus! If it's any worse the next time, I won't be successful, and - and I'll lose him!"

"Well, then you have two alternatives. Either you will learn more before Dumbledore's next illness, and you will cure him again, or you will not learn enough, and he will die," Snape flatly said. "But if you kill yourself now, what will happen the next time Dumbledore gets ill?"

She bent over at his words, and buried her face in her hands. "I'm a failure again. Nothing but a damned failure."

"How dare you think that you are worse than me?" he asked her. "I have done and seen things that are far worse than you can ever dream of."

Poppy pulled herself up, and replied, far too calmly, "Yes, Severus, you're correct, of course." She stared at the door, and started to walk slowly towards it. Her face looked as if it belonged on a stone grave-marker.

Snape's mouth dropped open as the realization hit him. She is not out of danger yet. He moved to block the door again. "Poppy, I apologize. I should not have had the presumption to tell you what you should be feeling."

Oddly enough, she saw concern in his eyes. She was so bloody tired of holding all the pain inside. It'll break me, in the end. It's breaking me now. "I can't live with being such a failure, Severus," she whispered. "I can't fight worth a tinker's damn. I found that out soon enough. So I tried to be a healer, but no matter how hard I try, I cannot save them in the end. Their dead faces mock me at night..." Her throat closed up with all her unshed tears and rage.

Severus embraced Poppy, and started to rock her, as years before Dumbledore had rocked him. He pulled the potion-stained veil off her head, and ran his fingers through her greying hair. It tumbled down around her shoulders. A faint high-pitched noise escaped her throat. "Shh, Poppy, shh. It's over now, whatever happened to you is all over."

She shook her head as he cradled her against his body. "It's never over, Severus," she mumbled. "There's always a force of darkness, and it always comes back. And no matter how hard we try or how long we fight, we'll never win, never, never, never," and she pounded on his chest and finally started to cry a tiny bit at that thought of never being able to win against the darkness. Snape stroked her back as she tried to cry. I've even forgotten how to do that, she thought. Failurefailurefailurefailure....

Snape deftly and slowly moved his hands through her hair and over her back and shoulders. She shook at first, but then realized that his touch was soothing, not sexual. A brother's hands, not a lover's. And then the dam finally broke, and the tears started in earnest. For so many years she had been the comforter, and now at last she was the comforted.

"I take it that you were a victim in the last war," Snape stated when she had finished crying herself out.

Pomfrey nodded. "Yes." She attempted to clear her throat, and went on. "I was captured by three Death Eaters a few weeks after my seventh year was over." She pulled away from him, automatically stiffening as the memories came back. "I was young, pretty, and a virgin. Also fairly untrained in Defense, due to the inadequacies of the Defense professors. Those bastards took great pleasure in that."

"Oh, God," Snape whispered, dropping his arms and releasing her. "Dear God, Poppy, I am sorry."

"Sorry! Sorry? You went along with them, Severus! You still bear the mark!"

Snape's face twisted. "Whatever else I did for the Dark Lord, Poppy, I never took an unwilling woman. At least I can say that." He started to pace. "Murder, accessory to murder, Unforgivables, assault, battery, mayhem, but never rape."

Poppy snorted. "Is that supposed to make me feel better, Severus? You won't rape me, you'll merely cut my throat or poison me?"

"I'll do none of the above," he retorted, "except Imperius to save your life if necessary."

Poppy let out a breath. "Even at the risk of Azkaban?" she asked him.

Snape looked at her. "Your life and happiness are worth even that and more." He sneered. "So do try not to waste it again, will you?"

Poppy looked down, unable to face those black eyes. He gripped her by the shoulders, and shook her. "Will you promise me that you will never even attempt to take your own life again, and that you will go get treatment?"

Poppy nodded.

"Say it, Poppy," Snape said. "Swear it to me on whatever you hold most sacred that you will not ever even attempt to commit suicide again, and that you will get treatment for your depression, magical or Muggle, medications or therapy, or whatever combination works."

Poppy took a deep breath, "I, Poppy Pomfrey, do solemnly swear," she said, before Snape interrupted her with, "And look me in the eyes while you're doing it, Poppy."

She rolled her eyes, and then looked him straight in the face. "I, Poppy Pomfrey, do solemnly swear in the name of the Light that I will never again even attempt to commit suicide."

Snape nodded. "Good. Now go on."

Pomfrey took another breath. "And I solemnly swear in the name of the Light that I will seek and get treatment for my depression, treatment that works, whether it be magical or Muggle, medications or therapy, or whatever combination works."

Snape released her shoulders, giving her one final shake. "Good. Now go get cleaned up, and I'll make my bed for you."

Pomfrey's voice rose. "You'll make your bed for me? Severus, whatever are you suggesting?"

Snape glared back at her. "I'm certainly not going to force myself upon you, Poppy. Not ever, and particularly not now." He paused, and mumbled softly, "I'd never sleep with a woman who was messed up enough to consider sleeping with me anyway." He cleared his throat, and went on, "But I am going to stand a suicide watch over you tonight, and I don't propose to do that up in the Hospital Wing. You are staying here tonight."

"And what about the next night, and the next, and the next?" Poppy replied. "Severus, this is utterly ridiculous."

Snape glared at her. "You won't feel this way the next night, and the next, and the next, Poppy. You'll get better."

Poppy snorted. "Which of us is the medical professional, Severus?"

Snape's glare intensified. "Poppy, what would you say about a doctor who tried to remove his own appendix?"

"That he was a bloody idiot, of course," came the prompt response.

"Exactly," Snape hissed out, and smiled in a satisfied manner as Poppy realized he'd verbally trapped her. "Now, run along and take a shower while I get the bed changed for you."

Poppy glared daggers at him, and crossed her arms. Severus had to place hands on her again to get her moving. At his touch on her, she scurried off to the shower. As she was stripping off her ruined uniform, Snape entered the bathroom. He paused to admire her figure, still quite appealing. And the older the fiddle, the sweeter the tune, he thought. The bathroom door slammed behind him, and Poppy gave a startled jump. "Severus!" she yelled as she turned around. "Get out!" She snatched a towel and covered herself with it.

He shook his head, and Poppy could see that he was starting to smile. "Suicide watch, remember, Poppy?" he said.

"That does not give you the right to ogle me, Severus Snape! Now go on, get out of here!"

"How about a compromise? I don't go into the shower with you, and I'll close my eyes when you're getting out. But I stay here with you."

Poppy let out a slow hissing breath. "Very well. I suppose. And close your eyes now while I get in, Severus!"

As Poppy took a shower, Snape Transfigured another towel into a bathrobe. When the water stopped, he took a towel in one hand, and the bathrobe in the other, closed his eyes, and held them out. He smelled soap and shampoo, and felt Poppy take the towel and the bathrobe out of his hands.

"I'm finished now, Severus," she said. Snape opened his eyes, and saw Poppy wearing the bathrobe and with a towel wrapped around her head.

When Poppy entered Snape's bedroom, she saw that he had not only changed the bed, but also made up a separate pallet on the floor beside the bed. She let out a sigh of relief. "Thank you," she said to him.

"You're welcome," he replied. She stepped over the pallet, and sat down on the bed.

"Good night, Poppy, " he said.

"Good night, Severus," she replied.

When Poppy Pomfrey woke up the next morning, she realized that she was holding Severus Snape's hand as she lay in the bed and he lay on his pallet. Or he was holding hers, if you looked at it that way. She squeezed it once, and let it go. "Thank you, Severus," she whispered.

"You're welcome," he replied.