Care routine
That night Sirius slept very badly. He woke up several times feeling as if he had barely closed his eyes and rushed to the room where Snape lay, only to find that he had not been dreaming. There was his old enemy in the room opposite him, lying with an old shirt of his mother's. Snape did not wake up, however. Whenever Sirius entered the room, the Potions Master seemed to be peacefully asleep, and Sirius couldn't help but notice that there was a certain softness about him. He looked so calm, while he, Sirius, was forced to get up and couldn't sleep. A moonbeam had briefly lit Snape's face and Sirius had moved closer to examine his face more closely, as if being at night gave him the illusion that no one could see him doing this. The Gryffindor leaned over Snape and saw that the gash on the left side of his face looked large and painful, while the one across the top of his hooked nose was thinner and shallower. Sirius found it strange that Dumbledore's phoenix could do nothing for these wounds, apparently it had healed Harry of the Basilisk's venom, as well as the dagger that had drawn his blood to restore Voldemort's body. Sirius certainly wasn't the first to think of it, but he figured those cuts must have been caused by some magical act of dark magic, not by an evil creature or object. And the only people who could hurt Snape were Death Eaters. Slowly Sirius realised the gravity of the situation. With one last look at Snape, he vaguely thought of washing his hair and stiffened at the thought that it was his job to do so. He winced as he thought of the invective, he had hurled at Snape over the summer about including a shampoo in the house cleaning. Wryly, he stifled a laugh and left the room, hoping to get a few hours’ sleep before dawn.
When Sirius woke up again, it was already daylight. He stifled a yawn and shuffled around in bed, looking at the decor of his teenage bedroom. He had no desire to go to Snape but felt he had to, bound by his promise to Dumbledore. Reluctantly he got up and walked across the hall into the room opposite. Snape was still sleeping, and Sirius sighed. He had to start administering all sorts of potions now to speed up and allow his recovery. Fortunately, Madam Pomfrey had left a note for Sirius on the bedside table. He grunted as he looked at the list. Apparently, she had brought the necessities, but the supplies were not inexhaustible, and Sirius would have to prepare them himself if Snape still needed them. He couldn't help but chuckle at the thought of the look on Snape's face if he found out that Sirius was making the potions to cure him. He would certainly refuse to drink them, thinking that the Gryffindor would try to poison him. Sirius frowned at the thought and thought that if - or rather when - Snape woke up, he wanted to bring up the subject of their mutual hatred. That he had behaved badly as a child and teenager was one thing, but he thought it was very cheeky of Dumbledore to have thought that he could so easily brush aside the fact that a very adult Snape had tried to kill him (and Lupin) even though he knew the truth, that Sirius was innocent. A fit of rage burned his throat and he reluctantly grabbed the list and began to apply the potions.
The first vial contained a dark purple liquid and according to the Hogwarts nurse, it was a potion to speed up the fading of superficial wounds. Half the bottle was to be poured into Snape's mouth every morning. She had left a small funnel and Sirius realised he had to put it in Snape's mouth to make him drink the potion without choking (and in his sleep).
"Oh no," he grumbled.
He would have to touch Snape's face. Cautiously he reached over and tried to open the man's mouth with the end of the funnel. It didn't work, apparently even in his sleep Snape refused to comply.
"This is a good start," Sirius muttered to himself grumpily.
He took a deep breath and put his hands around the Slytherin's thin lips and proceeded to open his mouth, being careful not to pull on the large gash on the left. To his surprise, Sirius realised that Snape had relatively soft skin and he noticed that it made sense since the wizard had never had a beard and, as he had seen the day before, he was virtually hairless except on his legs. Sirius felt himself blush terribly, horrified as he realised that he had such thoughts and that he obviously remembered such details. Hastily, he pushed the funnel into Snape's half-opened mouth and slowly poured in half of the purple potion contained in the vial. To his relief nothing happened, which meant that the liquid had entered Snape's body.
He continued to look at the list: there were two more potions to be administered orally, one to feed Snape during his coma (it contained the essential nutrients for his survival) twice a day, a whole bottle each time, and a second to allow him to expel the 'waste' while unconscious. Sirius shuddered. He understood that this potion destroyed the body's natural waste before it was fully formed. Sirius blessed the magic, thinking that if this potion didn't exist, he would certainly have had to deal with Snape's 'waste disposal' himself. All that was needed for this potion was a few drops a day.
Then, and this is where Sirius saw that things were getting complicated for him, a pearly white paste had to be spread on the cuts to the faces. Madam Pomfrey had specified on her note that this was a very powerful and time-consuming mixture to prepare and not to be wasted. She also wrote that Sirius should make sure to apply a thin layer and massage the skin very gently to get all the cream in.
A little shakily, Sirius put his finger in the jar of magic cream and began to apply it to the large gash that ran across the left side of Snape's face. Immediately, the gash began to glow with a silvery glow. Sirius withdrew his finger hastily, not knowing whether to continue or not. Then, seeing that the glow was diminishing in intensity, he began to massage the wound again very gently. The glow increased as he applied the cream and decreased as it penetrated the skin. He did the same with the gash across Snape's nose.
"By Merlin," Sirius moaned in a low voice, "if anyone saw me..."
Then he added, after making sure he was alone:
"I'm sorry Snivellus, but your nose is even more impressive up close."
When he had finished, Sirius continued to read the instructions. Apparently, he was to wash Snape every few days and then massage him with a special oil that enhanced the regeneration of magically damaged body cells. Sirius frowned and said to himself that he would wait a while before embarking on the hazardous expedition of washing Snape.
The whole ritual had taken him about 45 minutes, and he figured it wasn't so bad after all, as long as he could put off the fateful moment when he would have to coat Snape's body with magical oil after bathing him. Sirius thought back to what he had seen the night before and, hesitating slightly, lifted the sheet again. His mother's nightgown was floating around Snape's lean body and stopped in the middle of his calves. As Sirius was about to pull it up to see if the blood had disappeared from the grey shorts, he shook his head sharply as if to clear his head and pulled the sheet back down. He was going to ask Kreacher to wash the pants or else find a clean one.
When he went downstairs for breakfast, the others were already bustling about the big house. Sirius dropped into a chair next to Lupin, who was having coffee and reading the Daily Prophet.
"So?", Lupin asked with a twinkle in his eye, eager to know what news there was about Snape.
Sirius shrugged and grunted.
"So nothing. Snape's still unconscious and..."
He paused, glancing towards the living room. The door was ajar, and Sirius knew that the Weasleys, Harry and Hermione were there. He cast an Imperturbable Charm so that they couldn't hear anything in case there were any long ears around.
"And so I was saying," Sirius said dully, "that Dumbledore asked me to babysit for Snape."
"What do you mean?" asked Lupin, raising a questioning eyebrow.
"Well, I have to look after him and give him a bunch of potions and..."
"Yes ?"
"And no, nothing else," Sirius grumbled, blushing slightly. "I have to warn Dumbledore if he wakes up, well when he wakes up."
Sirius had almost told Lupin that he had to take care of Snape in the first sense of the word. But he had pulled back at the last moment, somehow, he didn't necessarily want to share these details with his friend. Lupin would probably find it strange that Sirius was also in charge of washing Snape and massaging him with magical concoctions, of touching him. Instinctively, Sirius knew that this was a secret between Dumbledore, Madam Pomfrey and himself, as well as Snape, of course, when he found out.
"And... what's your theory on what happened?" asked Lupin.
"I don't know. I think his Death Eater mates must have suspected something and it went wrong. Snape must have made a mistake."
"Snape? Made a mistake?" sniffed Lupin. "I don't think so, Sirius, Snape's not the type to make mistakes and you know it as well as I do. I'm afraid it's more serious than that. What if... You-know-who found out he was with us?"
“I think, on the contrary, that Snape's quite the mistake maker," Sirius replied grumpily, thinking of the Dementors again. “Anyway, now he's here and he's wisely drinking the potions I give him.”
“You... you're not going to...”
“I'm not going to what?" asked Sirius more sharply than he would have liked.
“Nothing, sorry," muttered Lupin confused.
“I'm not going to poison him? No, Remus, that's not my intention even though he deserves it and I doubt that if I were in his place and he had to take care of me, he would never do it as well as I intend to do it!”
Sirius resisted the urge to leave the kitchen, offended that his friend would suggest such a thing of him. Even if he thought of it earlier, he didn’t meant that seriously.
“Sorry Sirius, I didn't want to offense you. I'm sure you'll do a good job, it's just that you look pretty annoyed at what Dumbledore has asked you to do and I know that you, that we, don't particularly care for Severus. You mentioned potions and... well, I just wanted to make sure you didn't do anything stupid or impulsive. I'm sorry, I should have known better, that's not your style," Lupin apologised in a softened tone.
“It's okay.”
Lupin patted his arm and then stood up.
“I have to go, see you soon Sirius and good luck.”
Sirius said goodbye to his friend and sighed deeply before going up to see Snape. Finally, he was beginning to want to know what had really happened.