Chapter Text
Harry made it into the Entrance Hall before his panic caught up to him.
Poor Hermione shuddered as his useless arm flopped against her hip again, and bile rose in the back of Harry’s throat. He pulled away from Ron on his other side and caught the arm, clutching it to his chest, but it only made the horror worse: with no bones, there was nothing solid beneath his grip. It felt like raw meat stuffed into one of Aunt Petunia’s dish washing gloves.
The room tilted sickeningly, and Ron caught him before he could fall. Hermione was speaking, but her voice was coming from very far away. Something about Madam Pomfrey, he thought. But would the medi-witch really be able to fix his arm? Harry couldn’t imagine it.
Harry released the arm, and it hung from his shoulder like a lead weight, unutterably wrong. Harry suddenly couldn’t bear to have it touching him, attached to him, anywhere near him. He wanted it gone. It was like someone had sewn a dead thing to his shoulder in place of his arm.
Ron hoisted him upright again, muttering something indistinct but clearly angry, but all Harry could hear was the rushing in his ears. The high ceiling of the Entrance Hall seemed to be closing in on him, shadows stretching longer and more menacing with every frantic heartbeat.
Then one of them moved.
“Well, well, well,” drawled the voice of the only person who could make matters worse. “What an astonishing sight… The Boy Who Lived, brought low by a mere bludger. I was under the impression that you were somewhat good at the game, Potter.”
Harry’s head jerked up to glare at Snape, and he staggered sideways with the sudden movement, only to be steadied again by Ron.
“Once again, your legend is blown far out of proportion. Or perhaps this is your new quidditch strategy? Distract the other team by flailing about limply?”
“You —“ Fury punched through his horror, sharp and hot. “That idiot — Not my fault —“
Snape’s eyes gleamed from beneath the curtain of his hair. “Of course not. Nothing is ever your fault, is it, Potter? You merely attract catastrophe the way flame attracts moths. One might almost commend the talent.”
Harry lurched forward one step, then another. “I don’t attract — Not — You’re unbelievable!” Harry shouted.
Ron and Hermione both cringed, but Snape’s lips only twisted into a mocking smile. “Ah, a complete sentence. How reassuring, if short. Can your bludger-addled brain manage a longer one, Potter?”
“Get out of my way,” Harry snarled, trying and failing to shove past Snape and start climbing the stairs. The rubbery arm swung out and then dragged limply against Snape’s robes, and a fresh wave of nausea crashed over Harry.
“Pathetic,” Snape hissed. “Try again, Potter. Or have you been bested by a staircase, as well as a bludger? I doubt your fanclub would recover from the shock.”
“Shut up!” Harry staggered forward, desperate to get away from Snape, but he only managed two more steps before Ron and Hermione had to catch him.
“Don’t make him angry,” Hermione whispered anxiously.
Snape ignored her and huffed out a cruel laugh instead. “Two steps without falling on your face! Shall I summon the quidditch scouts?”
“Get away from me,” Harry spat, forcing himself up a few more stairs.
Snape followed. “And miss the show? I think not.”
“Shut up!” Harry’s voice cracked on the shout. Ron’s arm tightened around his waist, and Hermione made a strangled sound of protest, but Harry barely registered either. His blood was pounding in his ears, drowning out everything but the mocking voice behind him.
“Astounding. He can walk and shout.”
Harry growled and pushed onward.
“Spectacular form,” Snape commented with a slow, mocking clap as Harry cleared the top of the staircase and had to pause to steady himself again.
“Don’t you have a cave to crawl back into?” Harry demanded breathlessly, turning to glare at Snape once more. Both Ron and Hermione hissed at him, but he didn’t care if the git took fifty points off Gryffindor at this point, or issued him a week’s worth of detentions.
But Snape was smiling. The bastard looked downright smug! “Bats fly, Potter.”
Harry stared at him.
“…And the sentences are gone again. Pity. Have you forgotten how to walk as well, Potter?”
Step by step, insult by insult, Harry found himself moving. Each time his stomach lurched threateningly, or the wrongness of his arm became unbearable, another needling remark from Snape shoved him forward again. At least once he reached the hospital wing, he could be reasonably sure Madam Pomfrey would chase him off.
Ron and Hermione hovered anxiously at his side, whispering protests that slowly fell away as they realized — impossibly — that Snape wasn't angry.
Harry, on the other hand, was ready to commit murder. By the time the lamps of the hospital wing shone at the end of the corridor, he was breathless with fury, but miraculously steady on his feet.
Mercifully silent at last, Snape swept past him and into Madam Pomfrey’s office.
“Bloody hell,” Ron burst out as soon as the door shut. “I reckon Snape thought he was helping.”
“He was helping, Ronald,” Hermione snapped, herding Harry toward a bed. "He got him here, didn't he?"
Before Ron or Harry could argue, the matron came bustling out of her office, looking cross. “You should have come straight to me!” she scolded, lifting Harry’s boneless arm to inspect it. “I can mend bones in a second, but growing them back…”