You're Nobody 'till Somebody Loves You - chapter 3

[snapealina]

Title: You're Nobody 'till Somebody Loves You
Author: snapealina  
Rating: T
Pairing: Severus Snape/Ron Weasley (no slash)
Disclaimer: The brilliant J.K. Rowling own the characters. I just play with them... a lot...

Chapter 3

They were approaching the castle, and Snape had still not yet decided what to do about the situation. He had to get Weasley some help as soon as possible, but what would he tell them? And what would people think if they saw them entering the castle like this?

But Severus Snape didn’t really have a choice; he had to get the boy into the castle. He just hoped that no one would see them, that they had all gone to their common rooms.

He stopped outside the castle gate and lifted the Mobilicorpus charm off Ron. He carried the boy inside, and heard a shriek as he came through the door.

“Dead student! Dead student! Dead student!”

”Shut up, Peeves!” yelled Snape.

But Peeves yelled even louder, and started immediately to fly around the castle yelling the news to everybody. Before Snape even managed to get to the stairs, the hall was full of people, all staring at him and Ron.

Snape knew what they were thinking. There he stood in the middle of the hall, all muddy and soaked with Ron Weasley hanging lifeless from his arms.

“He’s killed him!” he heard someone whisper behind him.

He froze. He didn’t know what to do, and seemed to have lost the ability to speak. He just stared at the crowd around him.

“Severus?”

He saw Minerva McGonagall coming towards him. Then she saw Ron and screamed.

“Severus! Is he..?” She looked terrified.

Snape merely shook his head, but still couldn’t speak.

“Let’s get him up to the hospital wing at once. Everybody get out of the way.” She shouted at the crowd, and Snape and McGonagall started climbing the stairs to the hospital wing, with Ron still dangling from Snape’s arms.

Madam Pomfrey attended to Ron at once, checking his body thoroughly.

“The boy is ice-cold, and he’s lost a lot of blood,” she said. “This is serious; I’ll need a lot of different solutions for this.”

She got up and went out to get whatever she needed. Minerva McGonagall looked at Snape, who had sat down on the bed next to Ron’s just staring at the poor, frozen, drenched and motionless redhead.

“What happened, Severus?” she asked him with a calm voice.

Snape didn’t answer. He just sat there staring at Ron, his mind reliving every dreadful second of the last hours. McGonagall looked at him and then walked out of the infirmary to fetch Dumbledore.

How could this have happened? How could a tiny, unimportant detention end up like this? All he meant to do was teaching Ron a lesson and making him stand up for himself. He never imagined the boy would end up nearly dead because of it. He had seen people being killed several times before, but it had never afflicted him like this. But then again, it had never been his fault before. Snape felt the guilt spread through his body.

Madam Pomfrey returned with the potions and a pile of extra blankets. She laid three of them over Ron’s freezing body, and handed the last one to the professor.

She forced one of the potions down Ron’s throat, and to Snape’s great relief he saw that Ron gained a bit more colour to his white, frozen face.

“What happened?” Madam Pomfrey asked him.

”He fell in the lake,” Snape answered.

“What in Merlin’s name were you two doing at the lake at this hour, and in this weather?”

“I… we…. Eh…” Snape didn’t know what to say, and his voice was starting to tremble. But then the door flew open and McGonagall and Dumbledore came rushing in.

“Poppy?” Dumbledore asked. ”How is he? Is he going to make it?”

Madam Pomfrey tucked the blankets around Ron’s body and turned to the headmaster.

“I believe so,” she said, but they could all hear the worry in her voice. “But he’s badly frozen and has gotten a nasty hit to his head, so I’m not sure when he’s going to wake up, or if he is going to wake up.”

Snape felt a jerk to his stomach. Had she really said if? Of course he would wake up, he had to!

Madam Pomfrey left the room to let the professors talk.

“Are you okay, Severus?” Dumbledore looked him with a worried expression. “You look like you could do with a warming potion of some sort, and you look even more pale than your usual self.”

“I’ll be okay,” he answered, but his voice weren’t convincing anyone.

“What happened tonight, Severus? How did this happen? Why were you two out in the grounds?”

Snape swallowed a lump in his throat. “Detention,” he muttered.

He knew that this was only partially true, but right now it was all he dared to tell his headmaster.

“Detention?” Dumbledore looked puzzled. ”By the lake?”

”Yes,” lied Snape. “Then he slipped and hit his head and fell in the lake.” Snape looked at the floor, not daring to meet the headmaster’s eyes. He would tell for sure that he was lying.

“It was a good thing you were there to get him out of the water then,” McGonagall said. “He’d probably be dead if it weren’t for you.”

Snape didn’t answer. He knew that Ron Weasley would never have fallen into the lake if it wasn’t for him. McGonagall rose from her seat.

“I’ll better alert his family, Potter and Granger about what has happened.” She walked quickly out of the hospital.

Dumbledore kept looking at Snape, but Snape kept his eyes firmly on the floor.

“I get the feeling that there is something you’re not telling me, Severus.”

Snape still said nothing.

“You have never acted like this because of a student before, and especially not a boy like Mr. Weasley.” Dumbledore continued.

Snape moved his eyes from the floor and to the student before him, but still not meeting his headmaster’s eyes.

“Very well,” said Dumbledore. “You know where to find me if you have anything else to tell me.”

He got up and walked back to his office, leaving Severus Snape alone with the boy he had just rescued.

Comments

[reg-flint.livejournal.com]

Peeves alerting every one was genius! And Dumbledore and Minerva are totally in character, looks like you can read their reactions well. But my main thing is of course Severus. I can't tell what is making him so conflicted as to lie...regret doesn't make him lie...usually, regret makes him lash out. As DD so rightly points out: “You have never acted like this because of a student before, and especially not a boy like Mr. Weasley.” I can't wait to see the deep end of the pool he jumped off when saving Ron and why Ron's emo-from-hell overreaction to his words makes him feel the way he does. Or perhaps that is best left to speculation..your fic is great because I want to speculate for hours and hours. Best chapter so far, runs a close contest with some of my favourite fics, honestly. I am glad I tapped my toes and pulled faces if this is what comes of it!!! :D ;) Kat
Speculation: Sev often hides his feelings but not his reactions. I see that happening here.

[snapealina.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much :D

I know Severus is sort of OOC (at least now I do...lol) Let me just remind you that this fic was also written before I met you and really started discussing Snape with someone. That's why I was so nervous about posting this ;)

I just choose to believe that even Snape can be thrown of guard in certain situations, and when he suddenly felt that he was the reason for a student nearly ending up dead after something as unimportant as a detention, that is bound to do something to the man.

We know that Snape can lose his calm and control when he gets angry. That can also happen when he is scared and in a state of shock. At least that's what I think.

[reg-flint.livejournal.com]

The one integral part that was missing was that he was not honest with DD...but then DD doesn't try to tear it out if him by making him elaborate, which is precisely what DD usually does to people - manipulates them. Sometimes I wonder why DD isn't in my House ;) Severus is pretty much in character and when I get that not everyone has been a Snapefan from early on (for me it was book 4, he was in the Foe Glass and I decided to trust him as well as find him intriguing....truth be told he had me the minute he recited his Potions soliloquy...I started reading with CoS, and so I have an edge there, and I've only started writing Fanfic since January, nor had I read any. I am way behind with podcasts.
I am really glad you found Harry, because we ended up friends!