Bound
Malfoy spent another full day in bed before he was allowed to get up and walk around. His scarring was minimal and barely noticeable unless you knew what to look for; it only looked like a silver tear by his right eye. His most severe injury was his right shoulder from when he and Harry fell from the explosion, but that was now healed completely. Harry on the other hand still had burns all over his left side of his face, arm and chest. It was slowly getting better but was still red and raw looking and still hurt when he moved in certain ways. Malfoy made sure Harry knew that he was healed and how he looked almost good as new and how he was able to finally leave.
“I feel sorry for you Potter, you look awful and you’re still stuck here, and no one has visited you since you woke up. Seems like the golden trio isn’t so golden is it?”
Harry tried not to think of that, of how Ron and Hermione never came to see him, or how this was Ron’s fault but he never apologized.
“Now, I finally get to leave your scarface behind and see how Severus is doing with all the potions we’ve been using. Have a nice lonesome time Potter.”
With that Malfoy go up and left the hospital wing, leaving Harry behind with tears falling from his eyes, feeling even more alone than before.
“Alright, Mr. Potter, time for more salve.”
Madame Pomfrey showed up from her office with the jar of burn salve she’s been applying to his burns every four to six hours. He automatically laid flat on his back and handed her his left arm, being so used to this routine that he even does it in his sleep. He still had tears in his eyes but they stopped falling.
Slowly a numbing pain started in his chest, like something was being pulled from him, or he was missing something. He couldn’t understand the pain but it was slowly getting worse.
“Madame Pomfrey, something is wrong. I feel something in my chest; it’s really starting to hurt.”
After a few minutes the pain was even worse and he tried to curl into himself to make it better but nothing was helping, he was crying in pain and Madame Pomfrey couldn’t figure out what was happening. All she knew was that it must be really painful for Harry to be reacting this way.
“Harry, I don’t understand what is going on. All my spells say that everything is fine except for your burns. It’s not registering anything else wrong.”
She was starting to really worry as the pain seemed to be getting worse, she decided maybe Severus would notice if it was a dark spell or something that caused this so she went to her office to floo him.
Harry was now crying and sobbing due to the pain but a second later the pain just disappeared. He laid back flat on his back and tried to catch his breath. Snape walked up to him and sneered.
“Faking it for attention Mr. Potter? How typical. You are just lucky that none of the potions I was working on, for you by the way, were in a crucial stage. Now stop your attention seeking and be good for Madame Pomfrey or I will deal with you as I see fit.”
With another disgusted look toward Harry he turned around making his robes snap behind him and left the infirmary. Harry shrunk into himself confused with what happened and feeling even worse now that his dominant bondmate doesn’t believe him.
“What happened? I’ve never known you to fake injury before Mr. Potter.”
Pomfrey looked disappointed, as if she wasn’t sure if she should believe him or not. Harry looked down, he didn’t understand what happened, the pain just vanished and he couldn’t explain it.
“I don’t know Madame Pomfrey. It was like this pain of something pulling out of me or something missing and then the pain just stopped. I never felt anything like this before. Wait. Oh no, it’s coming back. Madame Pomfrey it’s happening again.”
Harry was really getting worried, what if they didn’t believe him. What if this pain was going to come and go forever and he had no way to deal with it. He started to cry out in pain again. It was almost worse than before, the pulling feeling felt like something inside him was getting stretched further and further away. The pain was getting so strong he started having trouble catching his breath.
“Calm down Mr. Potter, just breathe, we’ll figure this out. I’ll get Severus again. This is just out of my depth.”
Just as she got to the floo and called Snape over Harry screamed in pain and passed out. Snape showed up once again, even angrier than last time, but when he saw Harry passed out and sighing in relief, he started feeling confused about the problem.
“What happened this time?”
“Severus it’s the strangest thing. He says the feeling is of something pulling out of him he screamed right when I flooed you and passed out from the pain. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Snape ran some tests, as a potion master he also needed to have the basics of healing, but as a dark arts specialist he knew more than most about curses and such. The results of all his tests were in the negatives. He couldn’t see any reason for this supposed pain the boy is in.
“There is nothing there. I see nothing at all that may explain this imaginary pain Potter is apparently feeling. And you’re sure he wasn’t faking it?”
Snape was starting to feel confused about the boy, he was sweating as if he was in pain and he obviously fainted from it, but it didn’t make any sense as to why this was happening.
“He fainted Severus, people don’t faint from imaginary pain.”
Snape nodded agreeing with that statement. Unfortunately he also knew that without any results there was nothing they could do, especially if the pain came and went in such short bursts.
“If it happens again call me right away, maybe it’s a type of allergy or something he’s reacting to from the salve. I’ll take a deep look at the ingredients and see if any of them could cause this type of pain.”
And with that Snape left once again, leaving Harry passed out on the bed and Pomfrey feeling a little lost on how to help the poor boy.
Snape returned to his potions room to see Draco finishing up a pepper up potion and bottling it.
“What happened this time? Another fake out by Scarface Potter?”
Malfoy sneered out when he noticed Snape coming back in. Snape went straight to his potions books to look up every ingredient and their properties from the salve he had been making. He sat on his couch and opened his books at the right page regarding the salve.
“Apparently he is not faking. He even fainted from the pain this time, but once I arrived the pain was gone like it never existed. If I didn’t know any better I’d say I was... Oh crap!”
And all of a sudden he dropped his book and ran to the door leaving Malfoy confused and alone in the room. Malfoy got up and followed Snape towards the infirmary.
Just as Harry was screaming in pain again and Madame Pomfrey was going to floo Snape, the doors burst open. Two things happened, Harry quieted down right away and Madame Pomfrey dropped the floo powder to the floor.
“Severus! You scared me! I was just going to floo…”
She stopped talking because of the view in front of her; Severus was sitting on Harry’s bed and holding his hand.
“What?”
Harry was slowly waking up; Snape looked at him and sighed in relief.
“It’s the bond. It is forcing him to be around one of his dominants. That is why the pain would leave as soon as I showed up and why it started when Mr. Malfoy left the room. Mr. Potter, can you hear me?”
Madame Pomfrey had her hand over her mouth in shock. It explained everything. Harry slowly nodded showing he heard what Professor Snape said.
“We’ll make sure that either Draco or I are nearby and hopefully with time you will be able to distance yourself from us. But for now you will stay in my rooms and share classes with Draco so as to stop the pain from coming back.”
He let Harry’s hand go and went towards the floo to call Malfoy over. Pomfrey was the only one who noticed the tears in Harry’s eyes as he processed what was just said.
Malfoy barged in the room before Snape could even pick up some flood powder from the floor.
“Severus, was Scarface faking again? Seriously, Potter, don’t you have better things to do than annoy everyone around you?”
Harry just turned away from Malfoy as he didn’t want to show him just how bad he was getting to him.
‘Alone with Snape or Malfoy, not even allowed to have class with my friends or sleep in my dorm…’
He felt like he couldn’t breathe. He still hadn’t seen Ron or Hermione or anyone else from Gryffindor.
“Ma..Madame Pomfrey. Have Ron and Hermione tried to come see me yet?”
Pomfrey nodded and told him the upsetting news.
“They were here when we found out about the bond. We explained to them what it means knowing you’d need their support. But, Mr. Potter, Harry, they didn’t take it quite like we expected. They blamed you for being ‘stuck with Slytherins’ and called you a ‘traitor to Gryffindors’ and left. I’m sorry Harry, maybe give them time to get their heads around the facts and hopefully they’ll be back with you soon.”
Harry just started to cry, he finally broke down. It felt like the end for him, he lost everything and everyone and now he was truly alone.