He gave Harry the potion to drink, then spread the balm all across his foot and began to massage it. Harry could feel his bones becoming whole again as the treatment continued. The process wasn't precisely painful--he suspected the firming balm contained a heavy-duty numbing agent. Despite that, he felt strange pressures coursing in waves through his foot, a sensation which was rather upsetting. Harry held his breath through most of it, then finally said, "That feels all right, now. You.... why aren't you a medi-wizard, sir? You really know your treatments."
"Pomfrey knows more. She'll check you, too. A bit later, I should think." Snape glanced over at Draco. "What happened here?"
"He attacked Harry with a bone-breaking curse!" Draco scathed. When Snape gave him a look as though to say, I do have eyes, Draco, the Slytherin boy drew in a breath and said, "All I know is Harry came running out of your office calling for me, and the wizard followed throwing hexes. Well, one hex. After that, he was mine."
"I think the headmaster needs to hear this," Snape murmured as he strode to the hearth and firecalled for him.
Once Dumbledore had arrived, Snape indicated that the casewitch should take a seat. Draco still kept his wand on her, but he seemed less tense about it, now that he had two older wizards to back him up if she tried anything. "All right, what's the meaning of this?" Snape demanded, hovering over the witch, his black eyes glaring daggers at her. "You come here under the pretext of conducting Family Services interviews, and end up attacking a minor child? Who are you really, and what were your intentions with regard to my prospective son?" By the end, he was roaring.
Harry bit his lip.
"I am Amaelia Thistlethorne, from Wizard Family Services!" the casewitch exclaimed, indignant. "And he's Horace Darswaithe, from the same! We've worked together for six years! I don't know what went on down here, but I can't imagine Horace would hex any client, let alone a child!"
"Show me your arms," Snape rapped out.
She didn't pretend to misunderstand; within moments, her bare arms were on display, completely unmarked. Draco went to check the casewizard's, then reported back, "He's not marked, either."
"Harry, perhaps you could tell us why Mr. Darswaithe attacked you?" Dumbledore calmly questioned.
"I don't know why!" Harry exclaimed. "The interview was... peculiar. It was all about Professor Snape, and how I could be sure he wasn't still... ah..."
"Go on, it's all right," Dumbledore encouraged. "Miss Thistlethorne knows all there is to know."
"Uh, all right." Harry swallowed. "Darswaithe there, he kept implying the professor was still a Death Eater. Then, once I'd insisted enough that he wasn't, he wanted... I don't know, proof... He kept asking if the Mark was burning still, and he wanted to know exactly what Professor Snape might have told the Order about Voldemort's plans."
Snape narrowed his eyes in a sharp look. "What did you reply?"
"Well, nothing! I don't know anything, do I? But he just kept pressing. Things just didn't sound right to me, so I decided I'd better get Draco--"
"Draco," Snape slowly drawled.
"Well, yeah! I could tell by then I was probably going to need help, and I sure didn't think Dudley was going to hold off Darswaithe, if it came to that. I needed a wizard!" Harry sighed then, and accepted something that should have been obvious before then. Draco really was on his side. If he wasn't, he'd have helped the casewizard who, Dark Mark or no, was obviously working for Voldemort. "Thank you," he said sincerely, glancing into Draco's silver eyes. "You did a really good job protecting me."
Draco snorted. "Oh, sure I did. I should have deflected the curse and immediately cast Protego around you at the very least, instead of letting your foot get smashed all to hell. I'm out of practice, obviously. We need to get your magic roaring back so we can duel." His eyes flashed anticipation.
"I think you did fine," Harry murmured. "Say, where is Dudley, anyway?"
"He said he was tired and wanted a nap. Right after you disappeared into the office. Actually, I think he was depressed." Draco glared briefly at the casewitch. "That arse Darswaithe brought up his recently killed father." His gaze met Harry's, again. "Seems strange he could sleep through all this, though."
"Oh, he's slept through worse than this," Harry said without thinking, then flushed. "Um, nightmares. In the summer I didn't have potions, couldn't cast silencing charms..." He shrugged.
"The question remains," Snape said in a hard tone, "why a supposed casewizard would be trying to ferret out information about my Mark or the Order."
"Polyjuice?" Draco ventured.
"Impossible," the casewitch insisted, though that time her voice was a good deal less indignant. Hearing Harry's story had taken the wind out of her sails. "Horace and I took the train. He was with me the entire time, and he didn't eat or drink anything."
"Maybe you missed it," Harry guessed. "Or he was clever about it. Or... er, he has an improved formulation of the potion?"
Snape shook his head, which Harry took to mean that the longer-lasting Polyjuice he'd used was his private brew, not yet shared with anyone, not even the Order.
"I didn't miss it," the casewitch asserted. "Really, Horace seemed quite exhausted; he largely dozed on the train, which is actually quite unlike him--"
"Imperius," said Snape, Dumbledore, and Draco, all at once.
The casewitch sucked in a horrified breath, her pasty face blanching. "Oh no, surely not," she gasped. "I'd have known, I'd have noticed something..."
"You mustn't fault yourself, Amaelia," Dumbledore calmly nodded. "It's notoriously difficult to detect." He turned to Snape. "What do you suppose the plan was?"
"Determine how I can resist Voldemort's call, and ascertain what the Order knows of Voldemort's activities," Snape crisply reasoned. "I suspect that when he'd exhausted Harry's usefulness as an unwitting informant, he'd have spelled him to sleep so that Draco could be interrogated as well, under the same pretext of a 'family interview.'"
"He did say he wanted to talk to me," Draco confirmed.
"That would be standard practice," the casewitch pointed out. "Though I must admit, his questions to Mr. Potter certainly weren't." Her whole face wrinkled as she frowned.
"So Darswaithe had orders to get as much information as possible, then Floo us both away?" Draco asked.
"Oh great, I'd have been fried to a cinder!"
Snape cast a brief glare Harry's way. "Don't be ridiculous. The man was a Hufflepuff. You know what they're like. He wasn't going anywhere, not through my wards. He couldn't even have left through the door. A Hufflepuff must have planned the entire effort, it makes so little sense."
Dumbledore cleared his throat. "Ah, Severus, my boy... you may as well know, Amaelia was sorted into Hufflepuff as well. Before your time here."
The look on the Potions Master's face was akin to I should have known, but the words crossing his lips were a smooth, "My apologies for speaking out of turn. The stress of the situation, I'm sure you understand." He actually gave her a slight bow.
Draco was the one who went ahead and said what Harry was thinking. "What's with this let's-all-be-friends routine? For all you know, she's under Imperius as well!"
"What makes you think so?" Dumbledore softly queried.
"Because my father likes redundancies!" Draco spat, pushing off the wall he'd been leaning against. "You don't think the Dark Lord cooked up this plan, do you? His style is to have everybody brought to him for questioning, no matter that he loses advantages doing things that way. He likes to watch the torture, you know? Besides, dear old dad, as Harry put it, has got his fingers into every last department in the Ministry, even an adjunct office like Family Services. I'd say someone heard about this adoption and tipped him off. What better way to infiltrate Severus' quarters? We all know he's dying to get to me... well, with this plan, he could kill two birds with one stone and get his hands on Harry again, as well."