"It'll be all right," he assured his father, a little bit encouraged that the man hadn't moved away from his hand. Severus wasn't often demonstrative, and Harry thought that was all right, but sometimes a little touch could really help. Strange to think that it was Severus himself who had taught him that.
Snape's shoulders shook slightly with repressed emotion. Harry really couldn't tell if that was from grief or fury. Most likely both. But then the man firmed all his muscles to sit rigid once more, his black eyes derisive as he shook Harry's hand off to make a vague wave toward the boy's face. "So. I assume Miss Weasley had to fetch me because that blow to the eye had rendered you unconscious?"
For a second, Harry thought about answering yes. After all, Snape already knew about the punch, so why mention the hex as well? Considering what Snape had said about blindness, however, it was probably a bad, bad idea to imply that Draco had hit Harry's eye hard enough to knock him out.
"Actually, he punched me first and then cast Petrificus," Harry started to explain.
Snape's hands tightened on the map, creasing it that time, though he didn't look up. "Your friends managed to enter my rooms and Finite the curse? Perhaps all my wards need looking over."
"No, they never even got inside." Harry frowned. "You didn't notice?"
"Considering the way you were pushing and shoving at them in your efforts to leave, I surmised they had come in and you were ejecting them. If not, though, then why are you not still under Petrificus?"
"Uh..." Harry didn't actually want to say it. One more thing that made him different, when all he'd ever wanted was to be normal. But there was no escaping who he was; his dark powers had taught him that much. "Nobody broke in; I broke out... of the hex, I mean," he admitted.
That caused Snape's gaze to snap up, all right. "You broke out--" In the next moment he was back to watching after Draco, whose dot was by then approaching the corridor at the base of the Owlery, the movement still careful and slow.
Sly, Harry thought it.
"Well." His father appeared to have recovered from his shock. "You can resist Imperio so I suppose that makes some kind of sense."
"It wasn't anything like that," Harry whispered, spinning around to lean against his trunk. He felt so very awful, like all his bones were laced through with pain. "It was... I called up wild magic, I think. And it took an awful lot out of me. You know, before the wild magic was always lashing out of me. This time it was directed inside, and it didn't hurt at first, but now it really does."
Moving the map so that he could keep it in view even while he studied Harry, Snape laid a hand against his son's temple, his touch the sort of one he used with the most delicate of his potions vials. Harry couldn't help it; he leaned into a it a little. It just felt so.... right, that now he had somebody he could depend on, somebody he could trust, in good times and bad.
"Perhaps the wild magic explains your black eye," Snape mused, his long fingers probing the margin of the injury with such care that Harry only felt a feather touch; nothing that could make him flinch.
He flinched anyway, at the phrase he'd heard. "My black eye?"
"Swollen shut, black and purple both. Not to mention oozing," Snape elaborated, dropping his fingers away from Harry's face. "As though Draco struck you the day before yesterday instead of just a few minutes past."
Well, that explained Ron and Hermione's reaction to his appearance, Harry supposed, though he still didn't know quite why his wild magic would have made the bruise flare up so much earlier than was normal.
"I wonder..." Snape mused, drawing his wand and waving it in an arc all around the boy. "Hydratus..."
All at once, Harry's headache receded, as did the pain in his joints. He blinked, his vision clearing, though his injured eye still refused to open.
"How long since you had a drink of any kind?"
Harry's voice came much easier than before; the hoarse rasp was completely gone. "Afternoon tea... not long."
Frowning, Snape glanced at the map to check Draco's progress, then returned his attention to Harry. "I suspect you broke the hex by accelerating personal time. That's why your eye looks quite so dreadful, why you were weak from thirst. You aged about two, possibly three days in the space of a few minutes."
"Uh... that's weird," was all Harry could think to say. "Though... I was thirsty on Samhain too, you know. Really thirsty. And it wasn't the same at all..."
The Potions Master shrugged. "Wild magic imposed upon oneself is something that's never been studied. I'd avoid it in future if possible. Too much of it might damage you in... unpredictable ways."
He meant his vision, Harry sensed. Or maybe his dark powers... all the magic he had left. If he lost it, would he be a squib?
Snape abruptly rose to his feet, the map still in his hand. "Draco is veering away from the dungeons," he bit out, annoyance in every syllable. "He is headed toward the grounds. The idiot child looks to be fleeing Hogwarts."
Harry pushed up off the floor, grabbing hold of his father's arm to steady himself. He felt better after the Hydratus, but still, nothing like his usual self. "Well, Ron and Hermione went up the stairs. Draco's probably worried they looked down and saw the body, that Aurors will be here any minute now--"
"Be that as it may, he is safer here than outside the Apparation boundary where any passing Death Eater can serve him up as a tasty morsel for Voldemort's next revel," the Potions Master spat. "Harry. I must go fetch him in. Have something light to eat while I bring him back. Sleep if you can."
"Eat, sleep?" Harry gasped. "You're joking! I'm going with you--"
"No, you are not," the Potions Master insisted, both hands descending to grasp Harry's shoulders. "I've no wish for anyone to see the state you're in."
"Heal it! Or cast a glamour--"
Snape glared. "I'm not ladling more magic atop the injury, not until I've had sufficient time to consider the matter. You'd still be blind if I'd proceeded as recklessly as that after Samhain, I hope you know!"
Oh. Harry actually hadn't thought of that. He was so used to his vision being perfect--no need even for glasses, any longer--that he didn't often consider how much his father had done for him... or what life would be like if he'd not had someone to help him after Malfoy had finished with his needles.
Malfoy, who even now might be waiting outside the Apparation boundary. Waiting for Draco...
Snape was thinking the same thing, Harry sensed, for the hands on his shoulders gave him a sharp shake to underline the command. "Do not follow me, Harry! I will not lose both my sons to Draco's fit of idiocy!"
Harry barked a laugh. "I can take Malfoy. One wanded spell and I can blast him straight to Mars!" He thought better than to mention that his wand was currently missing. Snape wouldn't like that at all.
Sneering by then, Snape harshly questioned, "And when Amaelia Thistlethorne drops by next? Will you 'blast' her as well? I should think you'd realise by now that I was mistaken and your latest series of dreams is coming true! If we are not careful, unadoption may well be next!"
"I'll risk it to save Draco!"
Snape's voice dropped to a low, intense murmur as he moved to speak against his son's ear. "No, you will not."
"For Draco!"
The Potions Master moved away a tad. "Apply your mind to the problem," he rebuked the boy. "Why do you think I am not rushing out? Look at the map! Draco is alone on the grounds; I am hardly going off to face an attacking mob. I am perfectly capable of stealthily retrieving your brother on my own. I will not be able to do that if you follow me and attract attention!"