The meals at the work canteen are in a fourteen-day rotation. Today, it is jacket potatoes topped with chilli con carne.
He is just getting up to leave, feeling as though he is the resident Ministry ghost given the amount of time he spends here, when an exhausted ex-student of his (Miss Perks?) leaps up.
She looks in alarm at the device on her wrist. Severus recognises it as one of the new PRISMs—Protean-Responsive Intelligence and Security Machines. Miss Perks is robed in the scarlet of the Auror Department.
Tapping her wand to its oval face, she hisses, "Proudfoot! Did you see? It's Potter! VIP at Mungo's. Go! Graves and Savage on the second shift."
She darts from the room, dinner tray forgotten.
Severus's heart clenches in his chest and he is suspended, uncertain, arrested.
It is always Potter embroiled in bloodshed and riddles.
He clutches his left forearm to his breastbone, and tears down the cerebral wall in his mind, stone by stone.
An agonising minute later, he sends:
Are you safe?
And then:
ANSWER ME
He ought to have sent a Patronus.
But it's too late. The Kneazle's out of the bag.
He sprints after Perks, and fortunately the planet's slowest lift has not yet arrived, and it is still jangling up to the floor. The golden grille slides open with a great clash, and she is jamming the button for the Atrium over and over again.
It is an agonising wait.
He sags in relief against the side of the lift when his arm tingles in reply.
Potter is conscious.
She peers at him suspiciously when he unbuttons his sleeve to stare at the grey Dark Mark. His Occlumency has kept out unwanted magical intrusions for a very, very long time. There are still no discernible words, but if he squints with his head to the right, he can almost make out some writing.
He follows her via Floo to the visitors' entrance of St Mungo's under a powerful Disillusionment Charm. He vanishes the ash and slips through the crowd after her.
"Yes sir, we're at St Mungo's and securing the area," a man says into his wrist. Miss Perks takes her place at the end of a corridor, beside another Auror.
Severus slips past before they start casting their charms against intruders.
He hears raised voices, so reverses his Disillusionment Charm, and barges straight in.
"Severus!" Harry cries. "Thank God you're here. They won't let me go—I'm fine."
Severus blinks. It is the first time Potter has used his given name.
"Mr Potter," he drawls, trying to create some sense of emotional distance between them, "I note that you are covered in blood."
"Oh, it's nothing. I just need a bit of patching up. Honestly, I should've gone to the hospital wing. They get very over the top here. A tiny bit of blood and it's like a national emergency," Potter says.
He is wearing a blood-soaked T-shirt that says, 'MAKE TOAST, NOT WAR'.
"I urge you to leave, Professor Snape," a Healer says. "You are distressing this patient."
"I'm not distressed!"
"Your wounds are not healed, I insist that you lay down," she says.
Potter struggles to his feet. "Nothing a bit of dittany won't fix."
YOU ARE READING
The Space Between Failing and Falling • Snarry •
FanfictionA very long time ago, Severus resigned himself to the reality that he doesn't have a soulmate after all. He's finally a real Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher and his life is perfectly tolerable, thank you very much. However, at the age of thirt...
