you raise me up || harry potter

chapter 20

»»————-　song:　————-««

saturn

★ by sleeping at last ★

❝ you taught me the courage of stars before you left
how light carries on endlessly, even after death.

with shortness of breath, you explained the infinite;

how rare and beautiful it is
to even exist. ❞

♢ ♢ ♢

Snape didn't make it a habit to pray. His father had been religious in the fire-and-brimstone sort of way: he would manage to get sober by Sunday morning and attend church to listen to promises of eternal torture, then come home to drink himself to the depths of hell and beat his son. If Tobias Snape had been a better father, or Eileen Prince a better judge of character, perhaps Snape would have been religious in the angels-in-heaven sort of way. But they hadn't been, and thus from a young age Severus made it a point to pray to no one.

He prayed now. To whatever deity would listen, to whatever omnipresent entity that controlled the affairs of the universe, Snape prayed that Harry Potter would live. 

The Anti-Apparition wards prevented him from simply apparating straight to Dumbledore's office. Basilisk venom's only antidote was phoenix tears, of course, but even Snape, Hogwart's Potions master, did not have phoenix tears in his stores on demand. The demand for that specific ingredient in student-level potion making—and indeed, in Healing magic as well—was so rare that no one ever thought it might be needed one day.

Snape clamped a hand over Potter's bleeding arm, but knew that if he died, blood loss wouldn't be what killed him. Snape panted from the exertion of both running and carrying the boy, but he couldn't afford to Mobilicorpus him—the application of magic ran the risk of making his condition worse, especially with Potter practically at death's door.

"Fawkes," Snape rasped. "Fawkes, I need you."

Snape was at the foot of the winding staircase that led to Dumbledore's office when a blur of red and gold soared through the air. A magnificent bird swept around Snape and settled on his shoulder.  

Snape blinked. He hadn't expected the summons to work. If he had, he would have called for Fawkes when they were still in the chamber.

Fawkes bowed his head over Harry's arm. Large, pearly tears washed over the gaping puncture. Snape settled onto the floor, Potter still in his arms, to make it easier for the bird to do its job. 

But something was wrong. The wound wasn't closing as it should.

"No," Snape muttered, "No."

He had been too late. The venom had probably already spread from his arm throughout Potter's body. The external wound wouldn't close until the internal damage had been healed, and evidently, it wasn't working. 

"Severus," a soft voice said. 

"Albus," Snape said desperately, "Albus, the wound isn't healing—"

"Give it time, Severus. The tears need another minute to neutralize the venom."

The calm in the headmaster's voice infuriated Snape, but he couldn't bring himself to put much effort into being angry. He was tired, and fearful, and he just wished Potter would open his eyes already.

Before their very eyes, the skin started to stitch itself back together, though painfully slow. Potter's breaths grew less shallow, and some color started to return to his cheeks. When the last of the puncture vanished away and Fawkes disappeared in a flash of golden light, Dumbledore and Snape didn't move.