"...--mire," was the last thing he heard before he was sent slowly spinning into a great vat of drowsiness that pulled him underneath the healing waters in his soul.
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The next thing he knew, he was in the hospital wing, familiar smells surrounding him, and someone's hands were tightly grasping his. Gnarled hands, knobby with age. Harry pulled his own hands away, and rolled awkwardly onto his side, pain coursing through him, though it was manageable. Even his eyes were just a dull ache, assuming he still had eyes. He didn't know, didn't want to touch them to find out, and certainly didn't want to ask.
So instead he asked, "Remus?"
"No, it's Albus," the headmaster softly replied.
I'm blind, not an idiot, Harry wanted to snarl back, but he wasn't quite so far gone as to actually do it. "I was asking for him, not saying you were him," he groaned instead.
"I'm sorry, Harry," came the headmaster's muted voice. "Remus Lupin can't be here."
"Is. He. Safe?" Harry enunciated with staggering precision, just so there'd be no more room for misunderstanding.
"Oh yes, of course," Dumbledore murmured.
"There's no 'of course' to it, not from my viewpoint!" Harry shouted, just before his last word sent him into near hysterics that emerged as mad laughter, until with a furious scream, he forced himself to cut it out. He wasn't going to fall apart over this; he just wasn't. "I bloody well don't have a clue what's happened! To anybody! Is Snape safe?"
"Professor Snape will be back shortly with some potions he's been brewing for you," Dumbledore replied, calm in the face of the storm. "To restore your sight. They may take some little while to work, though. We aren't sure how long."
"Are you going to tell me what the eff happened at my supposed safe house, or not?"
"You left it," the headmaster sighed, a hand reaching out again to touch Harry, this time lightly on the arm.
"Don't." Harry said, shortly. "Don't. I don't want anybody laying a hand on me, is that clear? It... reminds me."
"All right." Robes rustled as Dumbledore leaned back in his chair. "Is there anything you need, Harry?"
"I need to know about Remus! And Sals! And Dudley! And what do you mean, I left? I'm not as daft as that! And if Snape had a portkey on him, why'd he wait so bloody long to get me out of that hellhole? Do you know what that arsehole had done to me? What the fuck is wrong with everybody? Talk, damn it!"
Another voice echoed from the direction of the doorway. Pretty much the last voice Harry was expecting to hear--well, short of Voldemort's, anyway.
"Oh, come now, Headmaster." Draco Malfoy's smooth tones, so much like his father's drifted into the ward. "You've got to take points from Gryffindor for language like that."
Dumbledore didn't have to tell Malfoy to get out. Before the headmaster could say a word, Harry had sat bolt upright in bed, the pain be damned, and was screaming in incoherent rage, his hands reaching blindly out to grab whatever was handy and fling it toward that hateful voice. A vase of flowers, something fruity, and then several vials of potion went flying, judging from the sounds and smells as they crashed against the walls.
"Too bad you missed me," Malfoy said, his tone a smirk, but then, his entire attitude changed completely. "Oh, shit. Look, I didn't mean to say that, Potter. I just came to... oh, fuck it. I'll talk to you when you're feeling better. Here, catch."
A small package landed on Harry's bed just as he heard Malfoy walking away.
"Ten points from Slytherin for language," the headmaster murmured, a tiny bit of humor lurking in his voice. "Ah... Mr. Malfoy appears to have given you something, Harry. Would you like to unwrap it? Or shall I?"
"Ha. Not likely," Harry retorted, laying back down. "Check it for curses. Or maybe just consign it to deepest hell on principle. Whatever. Just get it away from me."
"As you wish." More rustling sounds, robes, footsteps, and the noise of cleaning spells to wipe away the mess near the door. Then the door was closed, and locked, though Harry didn't think it had been warded. That was rather odd. Then again, Voldemort knew his magic was messed up, and he sure as hell knew that Harry had been blinded, and unless his fuzzy memories were playing tricks on him, he also knew by now that Snape was loyal to Dumbledore. And Harry. So maybe, there weren't really any secrets left to keep.
"I think perhaps it would be better if we weren't disturbed again," the headmaster said as he settled back down into his chair. "I have quite a lot to tell you, though I'm sure you won't understand the full story until Professor Snape's brewing reaches a point where he can join us."
"When's that going to be?" Harry groaned, not sure if the emotion pressing in on him was fear, or reluctance, or worry, or anger, or hope, even. He cut the feeling off by filling his mind with fire for a few seconds. Useful trick, and he was glad to know he could still pull it off, even though some part of him was warning him that he couldn't resort to it every time his emotions became overwhelming. It isn't healthy, he could almost hear Remus saying.
And it wasn't, he could tell that in the next instant, because he just began shivering, violent shudders wracking him from head to toe as the fire consumed him and he remembered what it had been like to stand there chained, naked, helpless, while Lucius Malfoy tried to set him afire from the inside out, while Voldemort tried to burn him with physical flames...
Harry stopped all efforts to Occlude, all efforts to protect his thoughts and mind and self, and that was when it struck him.
"What's this about Remus Lupin can't be here?" he pressed, sudden panic washing over him, because the answer to his question was obvious, wasn't it. "Can't be here!" he gasped out. "That's the most baldfaced lie I've ever heard! Remus would move heaven and earth to be here with me, Remus would kill anybody who stood in his way, Remus would never, ever, not in a hundred billion eons let me wake up alone after what I've been through! He's dead, isn't he? Dead, dead, dead like Sirius---"
"He's incapacitated!" the headmaster interrupted, raising his voice to him. That was so unusual that it quieted Harry at once. "When you went missing, Professor Snape disregarded everything else, to search for you and devise a means of rescue. Everything else, Harry. Do you understand?"
Oh, dear Merlin. "Yes," Harry moaned, guilt welling up in him, though surely it wasn't his fault, the things that had happened. "You mean the Wolfsbane... Snape said he'd ruined a batch and had to start over, he was going to be working on it that day, the day Malfoy found me." Panic crowded in on him, again. Blind panic that actually had him trying desperately to see the headmaster's expression. "Incapacitated, you said. But you said he was safe...?"
"He's in bad shape. Rather... torn up, and not recovering as well as he used to. It's been years, you understand, since Professor Lupin had to endure his moon time without the help of the Wolfsbane Potion. But he will be fine, Harry, he will. He just needs time. I'm sure he'll come to see you the instant he's able."
"Yeah, okay," Harry said, swallowing back the rest of his panic. "So how did Lucius Malfoy get into my house? 'Cause I didn't leave it."
"Are you sure you wish to hear everything just now, Harry? Miss Granger and Mr. Weasley have expressed a strong desire--though demand would be more the word, I should think--to be informed the instant you wake. They'd be here now, missing all their classes and meals as well, if we hadn't chased them out." Dumbledore chuckled slightly. "Repeatedly. I'm afraid I had to confiscate your Invisibility Cloak, Harry. But never fear; I shall return it. I doubt you're feeling up to wandering, just yet."