This Spiral Dance

Chapter 4: Homecoming

Dumbledore located Lily's temporary residence in one of the rooms on the fourth floor, at the end of a narrow corridor. Lily resolved to draw less attention to their moving in by reaching the castle a reasonable but short time after lunch. No matter how long she dealt with this kind of behaviour, she wouldn't ever get accustomed to the wary or panicked looks people used to throw at Harry whenever she took him outside with her. The wizarding world might be advanced in healing ailments that Muggles considered fatal, but it was completely out of sorts when it came to mental illness. Wizards and witches simply refused to accept that condition as curable, on cultural principle. If magic resonated between your mind and your heart, then losing control of the former was the worst thing that could happen to you, and it was unthinkable to view it as anything but an intrinsic and unrecoverable flaw. Yet it seemed Muggle and magical folk shared at least one common basis: Lily had stated that they both tended to either try to change the subject when it seemed her child might come up in conversation (even to the point of looking anywhere but in his direction when he was present) or to show a vulgar, inappropriate curiosity expressed in rude stares and uncomfortable questions, or palpable awkwardness that shone through in more forms and measures than she could have imagined.

Yet all her precautions didn't save her from the alternately irritating and embarrassing onslaught of self-consciousness she experienced following the Headmaster along the Hogwarts passages as small groups of students whispered behind them, or glanced sidelong at her son. Overcome by a frustrated desire to protect him, she clung to the Harry's hands while he followed by her side, feeling him clinging back with equal strength but knowing better than to read into it anything more than the reflex it was.

Severus wasn't part of the small entourage of teachers that welcomed her, and Lily couldn't decide whether she was relieved or disappointed; still, she could find comfort in Minerva's severe but solid presence and the way the gossipy Hufflepuffs and brazen Gryffindors alike hurried to look away when her stern gaze exposed their nosiness.

Lily didn't notice any Ravenclaws or Slytherins, but it was probably due to their more subtle interest in a new guest's arrival; they were far less likely to accidentally crossing her path during her first day. If anything, she could expect a greater subtlety on their part.

Near the end of the seemingly endless tour, she recognized a mirror they passed which hid the secret passageway to Hogsmeade that James had revealed to her on their first date to impress her. It struck her as impossible that this was the same castle where she had received an education and grown from a child into a woman.

She didn't notice how tense she was until they reached their destination. Minerva left them as the Headmaster shooed her and Harry into their new room. The moment the door was closed behind her she felt a huge weight lift off her shoulders, and her knees almost gave out. Theirs was a moderately wide rectangular room, with one double bed and a smaller one where Harry would be able to rest if she ever managed to convince him to sleep by himself. It wouldn't be a problem right away, since her son would spend his first months at Hogwarts inside the Hospital Wing. She counted on being able to persuade Poppy to allow her to stay by his side at night; there was no way she would leave him alone.

Lily was left to her own devices until the evening; she spent the most of those hours looking out the window and expecting a sensation of homecoming, which failed to materialize. She had always loved rooms with a view; this one looked out on the sloping grounds that led down toward the forest and the lake. Lily described for Harry the wonders of the wilderness that she saw, and she told him about the first time she had arrived here. He sat in her lap, his head on her breast and his unseeing eyes turned to whatever she was pointing to at the moment.

Severus stood beside Poppy as she refilled her medicine cabinets, cataloguing over and over in his head each salve and phyltre which came to his attention. It was a poor occupation, but it would suffice to keep his thoughts in order until Lily and her son came in, sparing him the annoyance of contemplating why the Healer appeared calmer than usual, energetically checking that everything was in order rather than trying, even once, to engage him in useless socializing.

When he tried to picture how Lily would react to him after the last conversation they'd had, he came up with a dozen drastically conflicting scenarios. He wasn't sure she had realized the full implications of his responsibility in Harry's situation; maybe a more private contemplation of their exchange had put the events in a different perspective, or maybe she was truly ready to forgive him, but he had prepared himself for both possibilities. Although he wasn't in the habit of putting much trust in what came too easily, Severus didn't regret telling her the truth.

Giving Albus another weapon to use against him wasn't an option worth considering. He was no longer a child whose yearning for Lily Evans extended to an inarticulate desire to keep her for himself ,and Severus wasn't so blind to his weaknesses as to think he could resist Lily's closeness without reaching for more. She was the last person alive that he had ever loved, and while he wouldn't define her as the reason for his wrong choices or his turning to the Light, she was probably nothing less than the living symbol of both. Whether she was aware of it or not, this fact gave her a power he couldn't fight unless she fought him back.

"Oh, Lily, we were right to wait to meet your little one!"

Severus snorted to himself in disgust in the face of the totally uncalled for, sugar-coated, and obvious greeting. Acknowledging the recent arrival with a stiff nod, he hoped fiercely that Poppy Pomfrey wasn't, in spite of all the past evidence which hadn't led him to think it, one of those women easily reduced to silly gibbering in front of a baby.

"Good evening, Lily." He welcomed her, allowing his attention to stray a little longer than necessary on her face. Her hair was held up in a tight, high bun and although he loved the way that cherry-coloured tangle of locks complimented her skin when they fell loose and free on her shoulders, he couldn't sincerely regret how much more exposed this arrangement left her features.

"Hello, Severus." The smile she gave him was strained, but when Poppy took Harry's free hand and the child turned to follow her away from his mother, Lily came to stand beside him, letting go of her brat. Her physical proximity gave the man so violent and unexpected an inner shudder of dark pleasure, blended together with anguish and nausea, that it was difficult to focus immediately on the patient Poppy was already visiting. He reminded himself of the charts on the table next to the ointment cabinet with shameful gratefulness.

"I thought you would like to have a look at these." He handed her the documents and watched her slowly leaf through the booklet that contained the treatment charts, her eyes straying reluctantly from the pages to glance back to her child-creature, who was passively submitting to more or less standard diagnostic spells.

"Can I keep a copy?"

"These are copies, already. Meant for you."

"Oh. Thank you." He received another, less strained smile; it made the situation both better and worse, but it also made it easier to concentrate on her boy.

His newest "test subject", as Snape liked to think of him, withstood the Healer's ministrations with unnatural complacency. The child turned when he was gently manipulated and stayed still until a new external stimulation prompted him to do otherwise. Most of his gestures and postures were automatic; the Potions Master recalled very clearly the impression he had received when Lily had led him in, as if she was pulling her vaguely recalcitrant son along rather than walking with a uncaringly complacent one.

When Poppy had gently ruffled his hair before taking his hand, Potter Junior had looked up, orienting his head toward the contact's source but quitting the instant his mother released her hold on him and the other woman guided him ahead in her stead.

"Poppy, do you mind checking his reflexes before proceeding with the rest?"

The matron half-turned in his direction, eyeing the man with an interest Lily didn't miss. "Not at all, Severus."

Lily's surging concern - probably unnecessary and prompted by a biologically programmed impulse to obsess over details - was calmed by a discovery of amusement in the mediwitch's stressing of the adviser's full name and his answering frown. Honestly, this man had taken himself seriously enough before becoming a professor....

While Severus observed with more attention Harry's responses to Poppy's testing, Lily's gaze produced a faint tingle on the edge of his Occlumency-trained awareness as it traveled from his face to the check-up that was occurring.

"His reflexes are flawless," Poppy commented with a proud nod at the end, and Lily forced herself to nod back and to state the obvious.

"Good." Although it sounded slightly like a question as she slanted a probing glance to the silently pensive man at her side, whose face was unnervingly neutral.

"Perfect," he remarked, with a sarcasm born more out of habit than anything else.

They were perfect, and therein lay the problem. The way the Cruciatus worked was by "persuading" nerve endings that they perceived a pain beyond endurance, whereas the Flameo Curse that Bellatrix Lestrange was supposed to have inflicted on Harry Potter acted on the nervous system directly, forcing it to damage itself, sending around opposite and/or random impulses which translated in unforeseeable or unwanted physical responses. It was entirely plausible that the acute damage caused by the Flameo had altered the physiological pathway followed by the nervous impulses, creating a reverberating circuit between the central nervous system and the autonomic one. Put another way, the curse might have "taught" the neurons to generate only opposite impulses, which voided each other, on the level at which the two systems connected, so the CNS was isolated. If he considered these two possibilities, it made sense that the boy's reflexes were perfectly conserved while his cerebral function left something to be desired. Yet the hypothesis didn't please him fully. He should wait until the treatment either confirmed it or excluded it.