And Then There Were Three

Chapter 3

It was the crying that pulled Snape from his sleep, but it was the strangled screams that had him sprinting toward Harry's room.

He threw open the bedroom door and rushed inside, the lanterns lighting themselves and sending out only a dim glow. Enough that he could see by but not enough that the brightness would bother Harry further.

Harry was still asleep, thrashing about as he screamed. The blankets and sheets were a tangled mess around his arms and legs, only serving to hold him down and scare him even more.

"Harry," Snape said as he sat on the edge of the bed and began to work on pulling the blankets away from him.

"Harry!" he said, louder. "Harry, you've got to wake up!"

He tried to shake Harry awake, but it only caused him to scream more. Whatever this nightmare was about, it wasn't one of his usual terrors.

Snape managed to free Harry's arms and legs from the blanket just as Harry's eyes snapped open, though instead of this calming Harry, it seemed to terrify him more when he didn't immediately recognize where he was.

He sat bolt upright in the bed as his chest heaved. Harry clasped a hand over his mouth, and Snape summoned a bucket just in time for Harry to lose his dinner into it.

"Dad!"

"Harry," Snape said, reaching out to him. He rubbed circles on his back and shoulders as he said, "I'm right here."

But Harry was sobbing so hard that he couldn't hear him, and so Snape did the only other thing he could think of; he banished the bucket and moved to sit back against the headboard before he pulled Harry into his lap. He carefully wrapped his arms around the boy and held him close as he began to talk quietly to him as he rocked back and forth.

Snape pushed Harry's sweat-soaked hair back from his face as he said, "Shh, Harry, you're safe. I've got you."

Slowly— ever so slowly— Harry began to calm down. He was leaning heavily against Snape's chest, and he could hear his heart beating beneath the cotton t-shirt he wore. He focused first on that sound. The steady, 'ba-dum, ba-dum,' of Snape's heart and the slow, in and out, of his breathing. He worked on matching it with his own, but the nightmare was still so close to the surface of his mind that he only managed a couple of deep, ragged breaths before his breathing became erratic again.

Snape continued to rock him. "It's alright," he whispered. "You're here, in your room, and I've got you. Nothing can hurt you here, Harry."

Harry felt his dad's arms wrapping solidly around him, and he managed to lift one hand to rest on Snape's forearm. He tried focusing on that next. On the way that the skin felt beneath his palm and how the muscles there flexed when he shifted his arm to hold him tighter.

Real.

This was real. He was in his room with his dad. He wasn't back there. Everything from his nightmare was fake, and he was safe.

"That's it," Snape praised him. "Good job, Harry. Just keep breathing. In through your nose; out through your mouth."

Harry did as instructed, and this time, he was able to calm himself down even more. He began to relax just a bit as he continued to hold on to Snape's arm, concentrating on his breathing as some of the tension eased away from his body.

They sat that way for a while until Snape quietly asked, "I don't suppose you want to talk about it?"

Harry shook his head. He stared, transfixed, as the flame from a candle danced from its place across the room. His eyes felt gritty, and he lifted his arm to wipe at them until Snape summoned a wet cloth and held it out to him. Harry used it to clean his face as best he could before passing it back to Snape, who laid it on the bedside table, and it disappeared, to be replaced with a glass of water.