Severus looked up in frustration when a knock came at his classroom door. He already had a headache from grading First Year essays, and when he realized the time, his frustration grew. It was time for Potter's detention. The disrespectful, self-involved brat had been behaving oddly since his return to the school, and after his friends and Head of House had failed to discover from him what was going on his thick skull, Albus had asked Severus to try and glean what afflicted the seventeen year old Wizarding Savior. He didn't know why; he had never had what one might call a "good working relationship" with the boy, in fact it was a struggle not to strangle the reckless Gryffindor on a daily basis…but, he was indebted to the Headmaster, and to Lily, so he had agreed to at least try. He called for the waiting Seventh Year to enter.

The door opened and closed, and as Potter walked up to the desk, Severus got the deep sense that something actually was wrong with the boy, something more than typical teenage angst. It was only a month into term, but there were heavy lines of stress and fatigue on the young face, the tan complexion now a ghostly pallor. The eyes that even Severus could admit had seen too much were glazed, and the shuffling gait was troubling, like Potter had to physically force each step. Still, there was the line of defiance in the set of the boy's spine, and an arrogant look on his face.

The Potions Master observed all of this with mild concern, but let none of it show. He didn't actually know how to address whatever was happening to the Boy Who Lived, he'd only assigned the detention as a reflex after the Headmaster had approached him during Lunch. Figuring an opportunity might present itself, Severus gestured to the far corner of the room, where there was a sink and counter piled high with stacks of First Year cauldrons.

"You know what to do by now," He said gruffly. "Clean the cauldrons without magic."

Potter glared at him, but turned without a word. Severus couldn't help but smirk when the 7th Year turned back aghast.

"There has to be twenty cauldrons! I'll be here 'til curfew cleaning that mess!" He argued.

"Then I suggest you get started," The Potions Master told the brat dismissively.

He turned back to his grading as Potter stormed back in the direction he had come and went about gathering the necessary supplies to clean the cauldrons. Until this moment, Severus had suspected that Potter's friends had exaggerated the odd behavior. Now, though, he could see the difference. Even the argument had been more for the sake of saying something than in real anger or disbelief. What was going on under that ridiculously untamable mop?

For the next few hours, Severus graded while he listened to the soft shuffle of the scrub brush against pewter. Where normally he would hear quiet, disdainful muttering throughout the process, Potter said not a word. After a while, Severus lost himself in the silent scrubbing. By the time he looked up after finishing his 4th Year essays, it really was near curfew, and Potter had yet to come to him to declare himself finished. In fact, the scrubbing sounds had gone, and Severus didn't know how long for. Hoping to catch the Gryffindor in the midst of doing something wrong, the Potions Master stood and rounded his desk, silently approaching the corner.

He found Potter sitting beside a bucket of water, a half-cleaned cauldron perched in the fold of his legs. He was bent double over the cauldron, his cheek pressed against the lip, water-wrinkled fingers dangling from the edge. From what Severus could tell, it was the last cauldron…and Potter had fallen victim to an exhaustion that should have been obvious from the start.

Severus' first thought was to wake the brat and send him away, perhaps assign another detention for falling asleep. But something stopped him. The lines of strain that had been ingrained in the James Potter visage were gone, and he no longer looked as much like his father; though this would still not have stopped Severus from sending him away, had it been any other student. No, the thing that made him hesitate was that this was Potter. The brat hated him as much as Severus had hated the boy's namesake. The fact that he had fallen asleep so easily in Severus' presence said two things: This was almost certainly the first real sleep the boy had gotten in quite some time, and he trusted the Potions Master more than he let on. This boy, this young man, wasn't James' son in this moment, he was Lily's son, with the weight of the world still resting on his shoulders even after he'd done his duty with the Dark Lord…and he was deeply troubled.

Making a decision Severus knew he'd probably come to regret, he knelt and plucked the cauldron from limp fingers, catching the too-thin creature before he could fall forward. Potter showed no sign of waking, and this troubled Severus further. He wasn't sleeping, he had fallen unconscious. What nightmare could cause such exhaustion? The Potions Master and former Death Eater tenderly curled one arm around tense shoulders and the other under flimsy knees, then rose with the boy nestled in the crook of his elbows.

Potter did stir now, a slight frown creasing the pale forehead. Severus held his breath, scrambling for some explanation should the young man wake in his arms, but the test of Potter's trust in him was proved when he only huddled further into the black-clad shoulder. Severus couldn't help a frown of concern at how easy it had been to lift the Gryffindor. He was by no means a weak man, he'd always had a hidden, wiry strength…but this was a somewhat muscular adult wizard, he should have had at least some difficulty, no matter how slight the Gryffindor looked. Potter was obscenely underweight, and Severus guessed that if he lifted the baggy shirt he'd find a xylophone of ribs to go with the Quidditch-toned abs.

Carefully, Severus carried Potter from his classroom into the thankfully empty corridor (his Slytherins knew better than to be caught out after curfew, and it was near-enough that they were almost all stowed away in the Common Room by now). He made his way towards the East end of the corridor, wandlessly waved his office open, and went inside. He flinched when his under-used and overzealous wandless magic closed the door more firmly than he'd intended, but the Gryffindor in his arms only turned his face into Severus' shoulder and fisted a hand loosely in the fabric of his robes.

As Severus carted the Wizarding Savior into the hidden quarters attached to his office, he couldn't help but wonder how it had come to this. He knew the signs of neglect, personal or otherwise, from his own childhood, as well as dealt with it yearly from no less than a quarter of his Slytherins. It was obvious, now, that Potter hadn't been sleeping at all lately, that he wasn't eating or caring for himself. It didn't smell as though Potter was neglecting his hygiene, yet, but that, Severus knew, was usually the last habit of self-preservation to be abandoned. So why hadn't he seen the signs, signs he was trained to notice?

The answer caused guilt to clench at his heart: he hadn't wanted to. He'd had an image of who Potter was the first time he'd walked into the Great Hall. He looked like a carbon copy of his father, so he'd assumed a personality to match; he'd expected a shallow, self-absorbed, arrogant prick, and because he'd wanted to believe it, that was who Potter had become in his eyes. But no one who was suffering this much could be any of those things. Maybe he had been, before…but the guilt continued to gnaw at his heart. If he hadn't noticed the signs until now, how long might they have been there? Just because he'd always seen Potter acting like a normal adolescent, it didn't mean he was. Sirius Black, no matter how big of an arsehole he was, had been in an emotionally (and, according to Regulus, physically) abusive home, yet he had been perhaps the most happy-go-lucky kid in Hogwarts, next to the pampered James Potter.

Severus laid the young Potter out on his couch, summoning a pillow and blanket from his own bedroom. When the boy was situated, curled up slightly on his side, the Potions Master drew a stabilizing breath and reached for the arms that had once sported a golden tan. He studied each wrist carefully, whispering the finishing spell in case Potter had used glamour charms. He breathed with relief when the pale skin showed no sign of self-harm. He knew there were other places, secret places, that could be used, but he wasn't about to strip the young man, and the scans required had a bad habit of tangling with the patient's core, which would no doubt draw him from the depths of sleep. So, for now, he let himself believe that Potter hadn't discovered the double-edged sword that was self-mutilation.

When he was sure Potter wouldn't wake in his absence, Severus returned to his classroom. He gathered what remained of the grading to be done, and headed back to his rooms. It wasn't the first time he had utilized the desk there, but it was the first time he'd done so to safeguard a student. Dimly, a distant voice in his head queried almost nonchalantly if there wasn't some rule that forbade student's entering a professor's living quarters, but he ignored it.