Don't Say a Word
Teen · Hurt/Comfort · Angst · Post-War · Canon Divergence · One-shot · Completed
As I always write at the start, I'm a member of the Snarry CZ/SK group, where the brilliant FemmeFragile came up with the Snapíšek gift exchange. This story was written as a contribution to it. As I may have mentioned somewhere, I'm a healthcare worker. I have plenty of good and not so good memories from working in a hospital. This story was written in honour of the patients I keep remembering over the years. I don't know whether any of them would feel honoured or not. I'll probably never find out, since I'll never have the chance to ask them, but it's Christmas and these people still live in me. Because I'm extremely sensitive, I left the field completely and now do something entirely different in my life. Severus survived. But what is happening to him? And is anyone left on his side? Someone who cares what happens to him and wants to stand by him? Sorry for any mistakes, this story hasn't been edited yet. But thank you in advance to Kapast, who showed interest in editing it. Thank you to Martina Petreková and the others for beta reading! Enjoy the read!
I declare that the whole world of Harry Potter is the sole property of J.K. Rowling and that this story was not written for profit.
Severus Snape was tired. Tired of his whole life. He had never wanted to live in fear and be absolutely disgusted by everything. He had seen so much. Things that would bring a normal person to their knees, and he always had to keep his mask on and pretend he was actually enjoying it. Now he lay on the cold floor of one of the Hogwarts classrooms, looking at the ceiling. His vision was blurring, and for the first time since his early school days he allowed himself to take that mask off. He hadn't allowed himself that even in his private rooms, because he knew those walls had ears. A single stray tear escaped from the eye he couldn't close.
He had no idea how long he had been lying there since he had handed Harry all the important information, he only knew he could no longer feel anything. Nagini's venom was a pure neurotoxin. If he could have, he would have laughed bitterly, but the venom was doing its job well. He knew what would come next. Thanks to his work for the Dark Lord he had seen it with his own eyes many times. He already knew the muscle paralysis, because it had set in shortly after the bite. He had started to feel faint at about the time Potter reached him. He already had trouble speaking, because the venom was slowly paralysing the smooth muscle too. He couldn't focus and his chest had started to wheeze. He knew that now he would only be waiting for the last thing. For the moment he could no longer breathe. He was grateful that he couldn't actually feel anything, but the fear of slowly suffocating, fully conscious, weighed on him. It wouldn't let him think about anything.
It was almost the end when he realised someone was holding him in their arms and someone was shouting at someone. He longed to find out who cared about him so much, but it wasn't granted to him. He couldn't control anything in his body. Suddenly that person lifted him into their arms and kissed his temple. Severus felt that kiss. Strangely, but the nerve receptors in his skin were apparently still passing on some signals. "Severus Snape! Fight! I know you probably feel you have nothing to fight for, but I promise you, you do! I promise I won't leave you in the lurch. I'll always be here for you!" Those words got through to Severus's dazed mind, and he suddenly realised who the voice belonged to. 'Harry...' The thought flew through his mind before he sank into darkness.
With every last bit of his strength, Harry Apparated with Severus's body in his arms and ran into a Muggle hospital. He shouted at everyone that his friend had been bitten by a giant venomous snake. From there everything happened at once. They took Severus from him, laid him on a clean bed and quickly wheeled him away somewhere. Harry was quickly deciding what to do when the doctor examining Severus suddenly ordered them to stop and sat astride Severus. He started frantically pressing down on him, almost as if he were jumping. It looked strange, but Harry wasn't entirely ignorant of the Muggle world, and from the TV series Aunt Petunia liked to watch he remembered that this was something that saves lives. Severus was clearly in a very bad way. He rubbed his eyes and ran after them.
It took several hours. Harry sat in the waiting room until a nurse came for him and led him to a room where Harry got a terrible shock. Severus was practically sitting up in bed. His head was tipped slightly back. In his mouth was a tube leading to a machine next to the bed, which was clearly pumping oxygen into him. His chest rose in a strange, unnatural way. Harry ran his eyes over him and kept staring at his chest, where coloured circles were stuck, with wires leading from them to another machine on the other side of the bed, which was beeping loudly. Around his ankles and wrists were coloured plastic bands, connected by more wires to the same machine as the ones on his chest. A sound like breathing filled the room. He stepped closer. Severus was pale. Paler than usual. He wasn't moving. That made Harry even more afraid. He went over to him and touched one of his hands with his fingers. He frowned, wasn't he getting any medicine? Then his eyes rested on Severus's chest. Just below the collarbone, tubes came out of his body. He followed where they led and found that one tube gradually split into others. In total he counted five separate bags of some fluid. The nurse took him by the hand and pointed to a chair she had put by the bed. "Normally visitors aren't allowed on this ward, but the head doctor made an exception. You look like you're in quite a state of shock." She smiled and left. Harry sat on the chair and began to realise he was covered in blood. His shirt, his hands, his trousers. A memory of the doctor's words got through to his brain. "A neurotoxic venom is bad, but given the injury, it's still the better option than if it had a haemolytic effect." The words came to Harry like something foreign. He didn't understand what they had actually been talking about. "I'd like to know what snake attacked this man, you don't see teeth like that every day." Harry blinked hard. He suddenly felt incredibly tired.
Every day Harry went home to Grimmauld Place, but only to change and wash. In his routine he then visited the Ministry to ask about the Death Eater trials and to oversee Severus Snape's rehabilitation. His next stop was straight to Severus at the hospital. The doctors had no idea how long it would take before he regained consciousness. The general opinion among them was that the man might never wake up, and if he did, he would have a number of limitations. But Harry refused to hear it. It was clear to him that if Severus wasn't fully well, he would never forgive him for not letting him die. But Harry couldn't do something like that. He had fallen in love with him during their Occlumency lessons. Yes. Severus Snape had behaved horribly, just as he always had, and at first Harry hated him. But then he managed to get into his memories. By accident. And in those memories he caught a glimpse of the real Severus Snape. 'Why does he hide like that?' He asked himself that question for a long time afterwards. In those memories Severus clearly had an even worse family than Harry himself. When he later talked about it with Minerva, he found out that Severus had been raised by strict standards. His family believed men must not show emotions, must not show weakness and must ignore any hint of introspection. With that upbringing his father had made him a distant, reserved and critical man. Critical of himself and of others. James, Harry's own father, hadn't helped much either, bullying him all through school with his friends. When Harry then spent the whole of sixth year listening to Ron and his classmates badmouthing him and calling him names, he asked himself another question. 'Doesn't anyone see the pain in that man's eyes?' He could never hate him again. He knew that all the attacks and the hatred were Severus's way of defending himself. So Harry stopped provoking him.
When Nagini attacked him and Harry thought it was over, his heart bled. After the battle ended, he left everything behind and went back to him. His heart ached for everyone he loved. Every family had felt that damned war. Someone had lost a child. Someone had lost parents. Harry was aware of all of it, and he knew that the Weasleys, for example, would have liked him with them while they mourned Fred, but he couldn't stay there. He himself had someone close to his heart whom he had lost. Close in a different way than Fred. When he found out Severus was still breathing, nothing was more important to him than helping him. The others searched for him for days, wherever they could. It only dawned on Harry almost a week later that they might be worried about him. He had spent all that time with Severus in the hospital. The nurse brought him food left over from their breakfasts, lunches and dinners, and some coffee and water as well. Because he was afraid to leave Severus. When he realised he hadn't told anyone what was going on since the battle, he knew he had to report in. With a heavy heart he went outside, found a secluded alley and Apparated straight to the Ministry. Everyone followed him with astonished looks all the way to the front desk, from where a secretary led him to Kingsley's office. Kingsley had all the members of the Order in his office just then and was trying to put together a search party. Harry's appearance frightened them all. Molly threw herself at him and began checking him over, before Harry managed to get out the words, "Nothing's wrong with me. I'm fine!" He pushed her away, and then silence fell and Kingsley asked him to explain what had happened. Harry looked at them all and then burst into tears. Completely unmanly, but he didn't care. Hermione fought her way to him and hugged him. Only when he had calmed down did he tell them the story of Severus Snape and what had happened since. Molly and Minerva covered their mouths with their hands and listened to his story in shock. Towards the end Minerva said only one hollow sentence. "So alone! For years! How could Albus do this to him?!" Harry asked them all to support him and to visit Severus in the hospital. He explained what state he was in. Ron then asked why he hadn't taken him to St Mungo's, and Harry admitted that Severus definitely wouldn't have survived it. There was no antidote to Nagini's venom, and Harry remembered a little about snake venoms and Muggle research from Muggle school. He hoped that where magic could do nothing, Muggles might be wiser. With that he closed the subject and went back to Severus.
A week later, though, things didn't look any better. The Wizengamot issued a statement about Severus Snape that wasn't met with general enthusiasm. If it hadn't been a secret where Severus was lying, someone would probably have come to finish him off. Harry had no intention of allowing that. He decided to take every available precaution. The first was that he chose someone to stand in for Severus and had himself married to Severus in secret. That officially changed Severus's surname to Potter, and Harry was sure nobody would look for him in hospitals under that name. Of course he didn't know how Severus himself would take it… If he woke up to find out. But Harry vowed he wouldn't doubt it. The second precaution he took was a blood ritual he had found in a book. With it he passed part of his magic to Severus. He hoped it would help him heal. After all, his magical core needed a boost too. The healer assured him that Severus wouldn't wake up from it, but it would bring his body a lot of relief. Harry then sat with him all night and checked every breath Severus took. The next day the doctors decided his condition had improved enough to disconnect him from most of the monitoring machines and move him to a normal ward. Harry took it as a clear sign of improvement, even though the doctor assured him it didn't mean he would wake up. More days full of uncertainty followed, filled only with visits from his friends and Minerva. Kingsley didn't dare come, so as not to lead the people who wanted revenge on Severus to his trail. But he welcomed every message from Harry about his condition.
After a week on the normal ward, with only intravenous nutrition and heart monitoring, Harry got permission to exercise with Severus. His muscles were growing weak, and it could happen that when Severus woke up, he wouldn't be able to move. So every morning he diligently exercised with him and every two hours he repositioned him, as the nurse had taught him, to prevent further health complications. And so Harry became a full time physiotherapist, and soon after that a barber too. Because he couldn't bear to watch Severus's face slowly getting overgrown with stubble. He carefully shaved him the old fashioned way, since he didn't dare use a spell in a Muggle hospital, and treated his cheeks with aftershave. He knew Severus would feel more comfortable. In that moment it occurred to him that he should start taking care of his personal hygiene too. He knew Severus had some kind of tube inserted into his bladder, which for Muggles made sure the urine went where it should and also let them see its colour. As the doctor had explained to Harry, it was important so they could react quickly if his kidneys began to fail. Sometimes this problem could come on fast, and blood tests aren't done every day for long term patients. Another thing Harry found hard to swallow were the nappies. Severus didn't know about them, of course, but Harry felt for him. He wore them more or less only so there wouldn't be an accident. He wasn't taking anything in. Everything was given to him in liquid form. A nurse washed his body every other day, and Harry felt it was pitifully little and the man deserved complete care every day. After all, he was sure Severus wouldn't go to sleep without his routine bath. So he arranged with the doctor that he would take charge of his personal hygiene and had a nurse teach him how to handle Severus's body without hurting him. He regularly washed his whole body and got to know it intimately. After each bath he always rubbed cream into his body so his skin would stay pleasantly supple, and then he read books to him. One of the nurses believed a patient in a coma can still hear what is happening around them. Harry was afraid Severus would get bored.
Severus stayed in this state for the next four months. But Harry didn't slacken in his care and successfully kept going, including several more transfers of magic. When it happened, Harry was in the middle of his work. He was washing Severus's genitals when a hoarse voice spoke up. "What the hell do you think you're doing?!" But Severus didn't even move to stop him. Harry spun around, and the washcloth he dropped fell into the portable basin with a loud splash. Harry was so happy that he threw himself at him, hugged him and started to cry.
Severus was aware of the care around him. At first he was in complete darkness, and he wondered whether this was life after life, or simply the kind of hell prepared for people like him. Nothing made sense. Nobody was there with him. He had hoped so much to meet the people he had loved again. He didn't feel any pain either. He didn't know how much time had passed. After a while he only felt warmth and light seeping through his darkness. Magical. He began to sense that something was happening to him. That someone was moving him. Suddenly he knew he was alive, but he couldn't show that he was. He dreaded being paralysed forever. But further improvement followed. He began to feel touches on his body. Cleanliness. He would have been almost content, if only his brain weren't withering from the boredom. Then a voice began to reach him. He heard it with a slight echo, but he realised someone was reading to him. But who would read books to the man who killed Albus Dumbledore? Who belonged in Azkaban? By then he was well enough to realise someone was washing him really thoroughly, all over. He didn't like that feeling. It frightened him. He didn't want it. And so he began to fight the darkness. He wanted to wake up and stop it.
When he finally opened his eyes, he had trouble adjusting to the light, it stabbed his eyes terribly. He closed them again. He couldn't move his body, but he was sure it was only muscle weakness. He had feeling in it. So he only tried to growl, "What do you think you're doing?" He heard something splash into water. He opened his eyes again and was finally able to make out a silhouette, still frozen and staring at him. 'Potter?!' flashed through his head as the person threw himself at him.
Severus felt the trembling body of the young man hugging him. He didn't understand what was going on, and he certainly couldn't grasp why Harry Potter of all people would want to touch him in any way, but the situation he found himself in spoke more than volumes. Finally the crying was subsiding. Severus would have liked to say what was on the tip of his tongue, but when Harry pulled back and he saw his tear filled eyes and dark circles, he couldn't say it. Harry quickly threw a sheet over him and said, "I'll call the doctor!" With that he ran off. Severus watched him go, until the door opened again and a woman and a man in white came in with him. "Severus Snape?" the man asked him. "And who are you?" He looked him over from head to toe. "Take some blood, nurse, and prepare the gentleman for an MRI, we'll run a few tests." Severus lashed out when the nurse came at him with a sharp needle. But Harry stepped up to him and looked at him desperately. "Please, Severus! You've been out for half a year! They need to make sure everything is alright!" Severus felt bile rise in him as the length of time hit him. 'Half a year?!' He opened his mouth and stared at Potter. The figure hit him so hard that he didn't even notice the nurse take his blood and contentedly label her test tubes. He looked ahead of him and then at the doctor, who came closer with some kind of pen that lit up at the end. He lifted his eyelid and shone a beam into his sore eyes. Severus growled again, but let the doctor finish. When they finally left, Harry sat down on the bed beside him and looked at him as if he were a picture, with a small nervous twitch in his eye. "What are you doing, Potter!" Severus growled, looking at him sideways. "I'm looking at the man who saved my life several times, whose blood I still had on me a week after they saved him from death, left not knowing whether I would ever hear his deep voice and sarcastic tongue again." Severus took a breath to say something, when Harry's hand landed on his lips. "Not a word, Severus!" He took it away and went on with his monologue, regardless of the shocked Severus Snape in the bed. "As part of saving you, I married you by proxy. I went through a blood ritual to pass you my magic, several times! I exercised with you so that when you woke up you could stand on your own feet, and I took care of your regular hygiene!" Harry was getting into his stride. "So, you idiot, shut up! I love you. I thought I'd lost you, and nobody in this damned building could give me even a tiny scrap of hope! I've wrung out my nerves trying not to go mad, and now I want to kiss you and hear that you love me too!" Severus stared wide eyed and watched Harry come closer. He didn't try to escape, he just waited in shock for Harry's lips to touch his. When it happened, he suddenly felt that this was how it was meant to be. He pulled back and looked into Harry's eyes. "If I'm counting right, Christmas is just around the corner..." Harry searched his eyes for a moment before he chuckled. "Yeah, and you're a very nice little present..." He burst out laughing…
THE END
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Mimosa Confiante
By day, I work somewhere between marketing, copy and campaigns; by night, I usually end up somewhere between fanfiction, cosplay and yet another “what if” that refuses to leave me alone. I write mainly in the Harry Potter and Mo Dao Zu Shi fandoms, most often Snarry, Snamione, HarryLu and WangXian. My healthcare background means that anatomy, medicine and far too much research occasionally find their way into my stories. Cosplay is another way for me to play with the characters I love, whether I stay close to canon or turn them into my own fanfiction and AU versions. In Diary of a Slytherin Girl with ADHD, I write openly about life with a brain that usually has far too many tabs open at once.
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