the marriage stone (Discontinued)

Chapter 10 - Swords and Arrows

An old familiar, flaring pain in his forehead woke Harry from a sleep haunted by images of death and fire. The dreams too were familiar, the faces of the dead reminding him constantly of the mistakes he had made, and the lives he had taken. He almost welcomed the pain in his forehead now, for it distracted him from the pain in the rest of his body.

Opening his eyes, he noticed a dark shape sitting beside his bedside. Without his glasses, he couldn't see the features clearly, but there was no mistaking that profile framed against the bright light shining in from the window behind him. Severus Snape had a rather distinctive nose, and Harry spared a passing moment to wonder if it had been broken a time or two.

"Professor?" he asked, surprised at how hoarse his voice sounded. Had he been screaming?

Snape, caught in the act of staring thoughtfully out the window, turned immediately toward him at the sound. Harry wondered how long he had been there. When he'd fallen asleep, Madame Pomfrey had been attempting to kick out his godfather and the others. Had Snape sat with him all night? He thought he remembered someone stroking his hair, but surely that had been Sirius not Snape.

"Ah, Mr. Potter, awake I see," Snape greeted him, his tone resonating with his typical arrogance, and yet somehow lacking the derision Harry was used to. Harry wished he could see his features better, wondering if the man was angry with him. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine, sir," Harry responded automatically. He didn't really feel fine. He had a headache, and his body hurt abominably - particularly his shoulder. But he'd live; he supposed that was good enough.

He thought he heard a snort of amusement from Snape, and he squinted up at him again, wondering if that was a twitch of smile he had seen. Surely not.

Then Snape reached for something inside his robes. "I found your glasses," he informed Harry, holding the object up. Then to Harry's surprise, rather than simply hand them to him, he placed them on Harry's face himself, slipping them carefully into position. The room came immediately into focus.

"Thank you," Harry stammered, immediately raising one hand to push the glasses more firmly onto his nose. He discovered instantly why Snape had done it for him - moving his arm hurt! He hissed at the discovery. Snape caught his wrist and pushed it back down onto the bed.

"Let me have a look at your wound, Mr. Potter," he said tightly, and then to Harry's consternation unbuttoned his pajama top and pulled it opened, revealing a heavy white bandage on his right shoulder. Deft fingers removed the bandage swiftly and painlessly, and Harry caught a glimpse of skin blackened with bruising and a barely closed wound just below his collarbone. Snape moved away for a moment, and then was back again, a small blue bottle in one hand, an oily substance on the fingers of his other. He gently began smearing the oil over the bruised skin, those long fingers moving slowly and carefully over every inch of his wound.

Harry sucked in his breath, momentarily baffled by the events. He knew he was wounded of course - could remember the events of yesterday quite clearly. But the reality of the wound caught him off guard. And the memory of an arrow protruding from his shoulder was tenuous and strange. Despite that, it was Snape's behavior that threw him into a riot of confusion. He couldn't recall a single time in all the years he'd know Snape that the man had ever touched him with such gentleness.

Actually he could only recall a handful of times the man had touched him period - and never once to stroke his skin as he was now doing. It was strangely intimate, though he doubted he'd have the same thought if it had been Madame Pomfrey doing it.

But that was just it, wasn't it. This was Madame Pomfrey's job. So why was Snape doing it instead?

But the pain was fading in a most welcomed fashion, and those fingers did feel oddly soothing.