Severus Snape and Harry Potter

Chapter 25

Severus had learned to wake at the slightest noise, and Harry's scream was like a siren in his ears. He was on his feet, wand at the ready, and striding across the den before the haze of sleep had fully cleared from his brain. But fast as he was, Skullduggery was faster.

The raven launched himself into the air and streaked towards Harry's room at lightning speed, arriving there scant seconds before the Potions Master. "Bran-boy, are you well?" cawed Skull, his voice that of a concerned woman he had heard at the Tower of London one day.

The raven hovered in the air above Harry's bed, eyes darting left and right. But there was nothing in Harry's room that Skullduggery could see or sense with his otherworldly instincts. No boggart lurking in the wardrobe, or zombie in the closet. Not that Skull had expected anything to be there, Severus' wards would have kept out the High Lord of Hell, they were that powerful.

No, the cause of Harry's scream was not from an outside source. It had come from within, the raven observed, as Harry jerked upright, his hair sticking in all directions, green eyes wide with a fascinated kind of horror, as if he had witnessed an atrocity committed and been unable to look away in spite of himself. He wrapped his arms about himself and shivered.

"Easy, bran-boy. It was just a nightmare," Skull crooned, flying down to land on Harry's blanket covered knee. The raven made his head feathers stand up and then flatten repeatedly and made a soothing purring noise.

Severus appeared at the bedroom door a moment afterwards. "Harry? What's the matter?" he asked, looking about in alarm.

Harry was too upset to answer his guardian at first, so he kept silent, fixing his eyes upon an unraveled thread in his comforter. His heart was pounding like a runaway train, and the terrible image that had caused him to scream in terror still hung before his eyes.

"I think he had a nightmare, Sev," Skull told the other wizard helpfully.

"Obviously," the other rolled his eyes. Then he approached his ward, moving slowly so as not to startle the boy further. He reached out and laid a hand upon Harry's shoulder lightly, not gripping, but almost patting after a fashion. "It's all right, child. You're awake, in your own room, and there is nothing here to harm you. Skull and I would never let anything happen to you."

Severus kept his voice low, his tone soothing, like rich dark velvet it flowed about the frightened boy, until Harry shifted his eyes a quarter of an inch upward and looked at Severus.

"I know, Uncle Severus. It's just . . ." Harry reached out a hand and began to stroke Skull, the touch of the raven's sleek obsidian feathers against his hand calming him better than any potion.

For long moments he stroked the raven, and Severus waited patiently for Harry to reveal what he had dreamed that had frightened him so.

The Potions Master seated himself upon the bed, still resting one long-fingered hand upon Harry's shoulder. He did not ask any more probing questions, wishing the boy to tell him about the nightmare of his own volition. The professor was relieved that a nightmare was all it had been, for a moment he had feared Harry had been attacked by the same something that had gone after Irma, despite his wards. But his fears were now groundless, and he exhaled softly.

Harry worried his bottom lip, considering whether or not to speak of his dream with his guardian. He didn't think Snape would sneer at him for reacting the way he had to the nightmare. But he wasn't sure he could speak of the awful thing without breaking down, this nightmare was almost as bad as the one he used to have of his mother dying.

Absently, he reached up and rubbed his scar, it was throbbing.

"Your scar is hurting?" the sharp-eyed wizard asked.