Regulus Black the Potions Master

Chapter 15

Harry opened his eyes slowly, his vision blurring as he came back to consciousness and felt pain throughout his body. The frightening sensation of something non-material passing through him, like a ghost, passing through him as if he wasn't there. But the cold sensation was replaced by something more terrible.

He closed his eyes again, maybe what happened in that room was just a nightmare, maybe nothing was real, and his mind was just playing tricks on him.

His whole body ached, not unlike the day after his beating by Uncle Vernon. So maybe it wasn't just the latest events.

Harry felt panic replacing pain throughout his body. His eyes were tightly shut now, he didn't want to open them anymore. Not to return to the world he was so terribly used to.

What if it was all a dream, as those sensations during all the happiest times told him? Then he would open his eyes and find that he was back in that little space under the stairs, and nothing had happened.

This made his heart ache, and he felt a strong urge to cry, he even felt tears trickling from the corner of his eyes.

He didn't want to go back. He didn't want to find out that it had all been a terrible dream and that it was all the worse because the dream had been wonderful, even the terrifying part in the forbidden forest facing the slug.

Tears were now flowing freely down his face, and a painful sob rose in his throat, even though he was trying to keep quiet or go back to sleep.

"Hey, it's okay," a male voice said very close to him.

The voice sounded strangely familiar, but it wasn't his uncle's, there was too much kindness in that tone to be Vernon's, and too adult to be Duda's, there was nothing kind or nice about that boy either.

Cold hands touched his face, as gentle as anything he had ever felt in his life.

"You're safe, everything's fine" the voice kept telling him, a calm tone, repeating reassurances "Pomfrey," the person said, their tone louder for the first time.

***

Regulus was ready to return to his quarters when he heard a small choked sob, he turned to Harry, still with his eyes closed, but now the boy was crying.

It may have been almost a decade of him being a teacher, but he hadn't become any better at comforting crying children. He kept saying reassurance that the boy was safe, but he didn't know what had caused it. Is Harry in pain? Or are the memories of what he faced coming back to haunt him?

Regulus was unfortunately very used to both scenarios. And with nightmares for both reasons too. So he tries to wake the boy up.

But the sad moan the boy let out when Regulus touched his face was heartbreaking

"Potter" the voice returned to its previous tone "Harry, can you open your eyes?"

The boy just shook his head in denial. The boy is awake, and Black doesn't know if that's better or worse than before. He runs his hand through his curly, messy hair, brushing a few curls out of the boy's eyes.

"Harry, it's me, Mr. Black," he says "You're in the infirmary at Hogwarts, can you open your eyes, please?"

The boy seemed to consider deeply what Black had said, and for a moment the man thought that the boy would continue to refuse to open his eyes, but then he opened them, blinking to focus his vision.

Regulus would like to say that he didn't expect to see James' dark blue eyes for a single second before the boy's eyelids opened, but Harry is such a copy - at least physically - of his father that it's even strange to see the green tint in his eyes. However, the boy also had a lot of his mother, Lily, at least that's what he heard from the other teachers, it's not as if he lived with her.