"Yeah, I know that," Harry admitted. "It's just hard, thinking he had it on him the whole time, but I had to wait... through that..." Deep shudders coursed through his shoulders. "So, what's the story then? Anti-Apparation wards snapped into place the minute Malfoy brought me through to the meeting? Um, anti-portkey wards, anti-pretty much anything wards?"
"More or less." There was a sad smile in the headmaster's voice. "I had taken the precaution of placing a tracking charm on Severus. A very weak one, or Voldemort would have noticed it, but it was enough to give the Aurors and me a focus for our spells. We drained ourselves, spent hour after hour trying to unlock the wards, to find some way through to you, while Severus watched for his chance on the inside. The portkey was spelled to heat when it became active, so that Severus would know within an instant that there was finally a way out for you."
"Oh, okay," Harry sighed, starting to understand. "He had to wait until your spells broke through."
"And in the meantime," the headmaster continued, sounding as though his hands were softly patting his robes, "he had no alternative but to act the part of a loyal Death Eater. If he had attempted to rescue you before he had a true means, he could only have achieved both your deaths."
"Yeah, yeah, I got that, all right? I'm not stupid!"
"No, but you've been through a terrible ordeal, and at the hands of someone you... to be honest, Harry, I'm not quite sure how you've felt of late."
Harry waved his hands wildly until his sore muscles protested. "It was a terrible ordeal at the hands of someone I trusted, all right? Trusted! It was horrible." Feeling like he was strangling, he began gulping air, and it only slowly came to him that he was trying to cry. Trying... but he couldn't, and not because he was ashamed to blubber like a baby, though that was certainly true. No, the real reason he couldn't cry, he thought, was because of Lucius Malfoy's vicious use of the needles. He hadn't just jammed them into Harry's eyes, he'd damned near mangled everything in the vicinity. Tear ducts, too. Harry gulped again, and tangled his hands into the bedclothes, gripping them with both fists. It was either that, or give in to a reflex to rub his eyes, and he really didn't want to find out how bad that would hurt.
"Ah, Severus," the headmaster abruptly said, his voice sounding as though he had turned to face another direction. "So good to see you out of your laboratory. Harry and I were just talking about the... ah, incident... at Samhain."
"Mr. Potter has my most sincere apologies," Harry heard his teacher stiffly say. He sounded so formal. Not just that, but angry. Stiff. It came to Harry in an awful rush of understanding that Snape had been acting just this way the last time he'd seen him before Samhain. They'd fought over Harry's having asked about the Death Eater meeting, and Snape had insisted he look in the pensieve and see it for himself. And afterwards, he'd been so very cold toward Harry. Snape had said that Harry could firecall him in the middle of the night, if needed, but he'd sounded so methodical about it. As if... there were certain things he'd bring himself to do because they were necessary, but he'd do them without compassion, or affection, or sympathy.
That conversation seemed so long ago, now. Unimportant, distant. But maybe it wasn't, not for Snape, since this behavior was more of the same.
"I have brought the boy's potions," Snape was saying, his voice completely without emotion. "The green one first. Let it cool completely, then have him take it with food. An hour after, the blue."
A whirl of robes, and the Potions Master was turning to go, without a word to Harry.
"These are for his sight?" the headmaster prompted, halting the man's exit.
"Yes," Snape snarled, actually snarled. "If that is all, Headmaster, I have more brewing to do."
"I believe Harry needs to speak with you--"
"What Mr. Potter needs," Snape loudly announced, "is Scaradicate Salve, and Blood Replenisher, and Skele-Gro for his chipped bones, and no doubt, a great deal more Healing Draught and Painless Sleep! And he needs them all made fresh, to maximum potency, if they are to have much hope of interacting with his magic, which as you know, is in an indeterminate state that at present defies all diagnosis! And I have more Eyesight Elixir to tend to in the dungeons, or did you wish the child to remain blind?"
"Go, Severus," Dumbledore said in tones of defeat.
"Wait!" Harry called, but when he heard his teacher's stomping steps pause, he didn't really know what to say. It didn't help that he felt so very ill just knowing Snape was near, or that he could feel himself shaking with an absolutely irrational fear. He fought his way past it. "Um, er... will you come back later, sir? I... I really did want to talk with you."
A pause, and then a longer pause, still. "I will endeavor to be back later this evening, Mr. Potter," Snape heavily announced, as though the prospect of such a visit was second only to drinking pure hemlock.
Harry, the boy thought rather desperately, but didn't say it. Snape hadn't called him "Harry" since before the disaster with the pensieve. From the sound of things now, he never would again.
The footsteps stomped off.
"Harry," another voice said. Dumbledore, again. "Would you like to eat now, and take your potions? Or should you like to hear the rest? There isn't much more."
"Let's just finish," Harry said, the words somehow feeling heavy. "The potion has to cool first, anyway. You were telling me about the portkey. You finally found a way to wake it up, despite all Voldemort's wards?" He huffed, and crossed his arms before his chest, a feeling of being hurt welling up inside him. But this hurt wasn't physical. Somehow, it was worse. "Kind of convenient, wasn't it, the timing and all? I mean, wait until after I've been tortured and blinded, wait right until Voldemort's giving up on letting Malfoy burn me and is starting in on me himself!" He knew he was being unfair, but he couldn't seem to stop the words. "Couldn't you lot have found a way to break through a little sooner?"
"But that's just it, Harry," Dumbledore softly admitted. "We never did break through his wards. You did. Your magic went completely wild for an instant, and nullified every spell for leagues around. Severus felt the ring heating, and leapt to touch it to you. The timing... well, you did that."
Harry was staring without seeing, trying to comprehend that. He vaguely remembered a feeling of utter power blasting through his bones and flesh and skin, the sound of Death Eaters scrambling for cover. "I did that," he acknowledged, nodding. "I did something similar when I was locked alone in the cell, but it was weaker..." His eyes closed. "If I could do it at the end, then, why not any earlier? I did try, I did. I felt... too drained. The needle didn't even bend," he added irrelevantly.
The headmaster ignored what Harry had said about not being touched, and lightly patted his hand. Harry shivered, hating it, but managed not to do something drastic like roll away. "Wild magic, such as you did, is called that for a reason. It's not well understood. I think perhaps you needed something truly remarkable to happen before you could unleash it."
"Headmaster," Harry groaned, "having my eyes practically shredded while they were still in my skull was truly remarkable, don't you think?"
"A physical intrusion. What happened later was a magical intrusion, Lucius Malfoy attempting to set your very magical core on fire. You fought back. Admirably well." Fingernails clinked against glass as he touched his hand to a vial of potion. "This has cooled, but you must take it with food, as Severus said. Shall I summon you a meal? Do you feel able to eat?"