Book Two: Snape's Memories

Chapter Fifteen

Ginny flooed to the the school, she would be arriving back with Tim all too soon.

Harry reflected that it had been a long fortnight. Tim's report from the Healer's had been disquieting. There was a load of stuff he'd had to get translated out of healerese; "diffuse nerve axis injury" and "neuropathy" and "fey" (Hermione told Harry that muggles referred to it as "post traumatic stress disorder").

It all added up to one little boy who needed a lot of love.

The healer's thought they could help him somewhat. The potions they'd been giving him had helped a little, Harry thought. He mentioned the project he was working on to the healers; trying to find the anti-crucio formula in Snape's diaries. They encouraged him to continue. The few who had taken their NEWT's with Snape agreed that if anyone could develop such a thing, it would be he.

Ernie McMillian, who worked at St Mungo's in the Spell Damage Department, offered to help Harry with deciphering the healerese in Snape's notebooks.

Once this week, Harry had gone to visit Alice Longbottom. She was a survivor of a cruciatus curse that had driven her to madness. Since her husband had died she had very little change in her condition, but Neville had suggested that Harry might have a better idea of what to look for if he knew what kind of damage the potion was supposed to fix. Neville had also kindly given Harry access to Mrs' Longbottom's medical records.

Harry had to carry on the conversation one sided, because Mrs Longbottom never spoke to him. She hummed vacantly, and, now and again, her eyes would meet his, almost seem to recognize him and then she'd drift away again. With a shiver, he was reminded of how Tim did that whenever he thought he was in trouble.

And now this...Harry had no idea how Tim was going to take this.

Harry made some more tea and tipped just a little calming draft into it. It wouldn't do anyone any harm at this point.

Ginny and Tim stepped out of the fireplace. Tim looked apprehensive as Kreacher took his and Ginny's cloaks.

Ginny put her hand around Tim's shoulders and drew him to the bench by the table. She left her arm there and unusually, Tim let her, "What's wrong?" he asked softly.

Harry knelt down in front of Tim, the boy's blue eyes were large and frightened. Harry had done several death notifications. He'd even had to notify children before that their mothers or fathers weren't coming home. Only in the cases of dark magic, of course, other types of murder didn't get sent to the Auror's Office.

This was infinitely worse.

Hermione had offered to do the telling, but Harry and Ginny felt it was important that they tell him themselves. She had stayed long enough to talk to Ginny and Harry about how Tim might react, "It might seem odd," said Hermione, "He might be very upset or he might not react at all at first. In fact it's more than likely he won't, children take time to process these things. Whatever he does, just keep calm about it. If you need anything, owl me." she'd said.

"Tim, love," Harry swallowed, "We've had some bad news. Your mum was found dead this morning." Harry had rehearsed this for the last five minutes, waiting for Ginny to get home, just so he could say it in one go. Ginny looked a little shocked at the bald way Harry said it.

Of course, Harry realized, suddenly, that Ginny had never been on one of these. And Harry didn't often talk about that part of his job. At most she'd heard a couple of stories that he and Ron had told when they'd had a few too many.

It was vitally important that the person being notified heard the "D-word" sooner rather than later, they said in training. The shocked person was too easily prey to false hope or they could sink deeply into denial. It was best to get it out there in as few words as possible.