Chapter eleven. The Magical Notion
Summer wind filled his heart with secret wonder. He did not know what lay ahead and the only thing that mattered, Harry thought, was concealed from him. He didn't want to think, or feel, or do anything. Just wait for Dumbledore and Snape. They would be able to fix this. He needed help, but he shouldn't, wouldn't, couldn't bring himself to ask for it.
Harry remembered the time, when Voldemort announced that Christmas had been canceled, his sense of elation... Why had he plunged in the middle of the lake so soon? It just didn't become somehow He-WHO-MUST-NOT-BE-NAMED being soaked in pumpkin juice and mince pie.
But it was a mere recollection now, he mustn't hold on to that. As the time passed, the sky grew darker. Harry lay there, motionless, staring into the velvety black depth above. Then, the darkness around him became somehow denser. Shadows were moving. Then he felt as if a sudden gust of wind picked him up by the front of his robes. He swirled into the wind and for a moment became a shadow himself. The next thing he knew was him being roughly dragged by the shoulder down a dimly lit corridor by Severus Snape.
Their face was gaunt and expressionless as ever, their robes billowed behind them. A door banged open and Harry was steered into Moody's office, which was vast and almost empty apart from a chest and several dark magic detectors. Snape closed the door behind them with one curt swoosh of their wand and propelled Harry onto the metallic chest with another.
The room lit by candlelight swam in front of his eyes. He was drenched in mud, wounded and slightly bleeding, what it seemed, everywhere.
"We shall wait for the Headmaster to cure all this", said Snape coldly. "I could've been of some help, of course, but I have orders...", they intoned lazily, "apparently, Dumbledore wants to make sure you are in trustworthy hands". After a slight pause they added with a smirk: "And they trust only themself".
Harry swayed a little sitting on top of the chest. Snape took several brisk swift steps towards him and stopped on the other side of it, so that Harry couldn't see the expression on their face.
"Now..." - Snape suddenly broke up the silence, speaking in a softer and slightly derisive voice- "I suppose the Headmaster won't kill me for that..." and they made Harry bend his neck a little, exposing a cut that they touched with the tip of their wand supporting Harry's head gently with their right hand all the wile trough the spell-casting.
The door had flown open yet again. Dumbledore stood there, they swept the room with their gaze and stopped at Harry, frowning for a fraction of a second.
"Headmaster,...-said Snape- this cut could've finish him off for good before your arrival, I thought..."
But Dumbledore cut across them reassuringly: "I see... You've done well, Severus, thank you. And now, if you would step aside..."