Rewritten History

Chapter 20

Severus strokes the hand with a finger, hoping to make it twitch. Nothing happened. He flipped it over to the palm was up, tickling the sensitive side of his father's hand, knowing when he was awake it definitely made the whole him twitch. There was nothing.

His father was too deep under to even feel life. He didn't look to just be sleeping. Hadn't it been for the rising and falling of his chest Severus would have thought him dead. By no means was his father a restless sleeper but he barely ever slept on his back. Astus had the tendency to roll to his side and curl up when asleep. He lying motionless on his back meant he was hurt.

Only thing that spoke against that was that he had no actual injuries. They were all healed but the fast healing rate had exhausted his body and mind. He had been minutes from death, perhaps even seconds. Having been pulled back from that in less than a minute and there was reason for him to be out cold for a while after that.

Still, Severus didn't like it.

"Severus…"

He looked to the doorway where Abraxas now entered. He carried two teacups with him and handed one to the boy.

"Lucius is out," he said. "Should be back by dinner. We can eat it in here if you want to."

"Thank you," the boy replied. He tried another stroke. Nothing.

"He will wake up," the blonde said. "He just needs some time."

"I know that," Severus said. "Yet I want him up now. I can't stand this waiting. I want him up."

"I know," Abraxas said. "So do I. So do Lucius. So does Bellatrix and Narcissa and Andromeda. They are all worried about him. He does have a tendency to give people reasons to worry."

"What happened? You never told me."

"It was the Dark Lord," Abraxas said. "During a one of his raids. They both got in a lucky shot on each other."

Severus put away his tea and moved closer to Astus, stroking his father's forehead and then his hair.

"It's tangled," he commented.

"It is," Abraxas said. "He'll want a shower when he wakes up."

"When will that be?"

"That's up to him, Severus. It's entirely up to your father and his body."

"Is it selfish of me if I want it to be now?"

"We all want it to be now," Abraxas said and moved to sit behind Severus on the bed. "He scared us all."

"Do dads always do stunts like this?" Severus asked.

"Not this extreme, but yes, sometimes we do stunts like this," Abraxas said. "Not that I would ever duel with the Dark Lord himself, I'm not that suicidal."

Severus reached out and strokes away his father's hair again. This time Astus' head moved a little but nothing more. It wasn't enough to reassure Severus. It wasn't enough to make him calm again.

"Come on, drink your tea," Abraxas said and held onto his shoulders.

Tea… Severus looked over at it. He didn't remember much of his time on Hogwarts while Astus went to school there, but the clearest memory from his early childhood was in France the autumn after Astus had left England.