Air

The night Harry Potter nearly died from the werewolf was the night Severus Snape realized he could no longer protect the boy from a distance. This was going to be his biggest challenge next. 

Severus looked down at the boy writing notes in his potions class. The boy seemed tired, more so than usual. And that was enough for the man to want answers.

“Potter,” Professor Snape said. “Come to my office after class.”

Hermione glanced at her friend with a raised eyebrow.
“Yes, sir,” Harry said.As the lecture continued, Harry's condition deteriorated, his coughs echoing through the classroom. When the boy coughed in his hand, a rough wheeze escaped him. 

“Now, the most important ingredient is…” Snape’s voice trailed when he noticed the constant coughing and wheezing. He looked over to the class. “Get. Out.” 

The class swarmed, leaving the trio with Snape. 

“How long has this been going on?” Ron asked. 

“A few days," Harry admitted, softly. 

“Bloody hell, Mate,” Ron expressed. 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Harry pointed out. 

“Be that as it may, I’m not going to let a student die in my care. So, we are going to the medical wing, and you are going to get help.” 

“Sir, I must insist that I’m fi–”

“Harry James Potter, if you say that you’re fine, I am going to throttle you,” Hermoine threatened. “You are having difficulty breathing and have been struggling for two days now.” 

Snape grabbed Harry’s wrist and began to drag him to the med wing. And if the boy saw the worried look in his professor’s eyes, Snape was grateful it wasn’t mentioned. 

When they arrived at the medical wing, Madame Pomfrey noticed the potion master’s urgency and began clearing off a bed for the boy. 

“Oh, my, what do we have here?” She asked. 

“He’s struggling to breathe, he’s wheezing,” Snape described the boy’s condition. 

“Ah, it sounds like a bout of asthma, a severe one at that,” she said, rushing to the medicine cabinet. She returned with a nebulizer and vials of clear liquid.

“What is that?” Snape barked. 

“It’s a muggle medical device,” she explained. “And we have some more medication made for wizards and witches in case something like this should occur.” 

The man turned over to the boy who was surely turning blue. “He’s getting worse.” 

Pomfrey put the batteries and medicine into the machine before placing the mask over Harry’s face. 

“Just take deep breaths, dear,” she said as she started the machine. 

Severus only watched as the steam rose from it. “Will this help him?” He asked, quietly. 

“Yes, it will. However, he must not leave for a few days and should not be unsupervised.” 

“Okay,” the man simply said. 

“Okay?” She repeated. 

He turned to her and nodded. “You and I both know the reason for that.” 

“Of course,” she admitted.

Severus glanced back at the boy and caught a ghost of a woman in his eyes. 

Soon enough, the boy had fallen asleep with the mask on his face. 

“Did anyone know about his…asthma?” Snape asked. 

“It’s not in his files,” Pomfrey replied. “According to his files, he hasn’t been to a check-up since he was nine years old.” 

“And he’s thirteen now, correct?” 

“Yes.” 

Severus took that mental note and tucked it away for later. “This means the boy has been neglected since then or before then.” 

“I’m afraid so.” 

Severus took a deep breath. “When he’s better, I’m taking a trip to Pivet to figure some shite out.” 

“Don’t do anything you’d regret, Sev.” 

“Of course not.”

Severus watched the boy as he was continually receiving medicine every four hours. And this scared him more as time went by. He already saw Lily dead, and he’d be damned if he saw her son the same way. 

If he was honest with himself, it would probably kill him. 

The potion’s master never wanted to feel this way towards the boy, the one that taunted him of the face of James Potter. 

The boy he had ridiculed for years laid in the bed, almost in a dying state. And that was the thing that was scaring the man. 

Losing him like he lost his mother. Logically, he knew he lost her when he called her that unforgivable slur but seeing her dead was it. That was the end of the line. 

Severus shook that memory out of his head, and he sat in the chair next to the boy. For some reason, he didn’t want to leave the boy’s side in case something went wrong. 

“Merlin,” he said to himself and covered his face with his hands. What was he going to do now? He didn’t know. All he knew is he now had to look out for him at a closer distance. 

This boy is going to be the death of me, he thought.