FICLET: Out of Time ~ Harry Potter ~ Harry/Salazar ~ General

[batsutousai]

Title: Out of Time
Fandom: Harry Potter
Author: Batsutousai
Rating: General
Pairing: Harry Potter/Salazar Slytherin
Summary: Harry catches the flu and wakes up tapped in a cottage with a stranger.

A/N: Every winter season, I send out cards to anyone willing to give me their address, and I decided two winters ago to start adding fic to the cards. This year, I settled on the very loose prompt of getting stuck in a cabin because of a snowstorm. Which some fics held to better than others, whoops. XD

-0-0-0-

It turned out that, while most illnesses were relatively easy for wizarding medicine to fix, not all cases of influenza were created equal.

"I'm sorry, Auror Potter," the mediwitch who had seen to him said with that sort of gentle, helpless smile that often boded poorly for the survival of the patient, in his line of work, "but there's just nothing anyone can do for you. I'll owl your superiors and let them know you'll be out of the office for a couple weeks.

"A couple weeks?!" Harry tried to shout, but it came out sounding congested and pathetic, and he recalled he'd decided earlier to just keep quiet as much as possible. For the sake of his limited dignity. (Also, he wouldn't put it past Ron to have a recording spell on him, as retaliation for the prank George and him had played on him the month before. Actually, he'd half thought his flu was retaliation, but then Ron'd dragged him to Mungo's, so probably not.)

"Go home, Auror," the mediwitch ordered in a tone that reminded him of McGonagall at her most strict. "Rest and lots of water will heal you faster than being here."

Harry slumped a bit and left the hospital. Since magical remedies wouldn't help him, he stopped at a muggle chemist and picked up some pills, managed a tired smile for the cashier's heartfelt sympathy, then went home to take the medicine and go to sleep.

-0-

Waking up being able to breathe was a relief, and Harry was about to start praising the muggle medicine, but then he saw he wasn't in his home. Wasn't even in a bed, but was curled up on the floor, shivering, and wearing nothing but his light house robe, glasses, and the pants he'd crawled into bed wearing. "Ron?" he called, because maybe the flu had been a prank? Make him think he's seriously sick, let him drug himself, then take him out somewhere distant and leave him to find his own way back? (Well, okay, watching nearby and helping Harry home after a few minutes was more Ron's speed, especially since he apparently hadn't bothered to grab Harry his wand.)

Someone stepped into the room, but it wasn't Ron. Actually wasn't someone familiar at all, though he bore a certain tall, dark, and angry resemblance to Snape, save that his robes were more green than black. "You're awake," the man said in a clipped, impatient tone.

"Uh, yeah. Yes?"

The man stared at him in silence, and Harry saw that his eyes were that same shade of not-quite-right green that Harry shared with his mum. The one that had always looked a little like the reflected light of the Killing Curse, to Harry. (Though that comparison may have just been because of his particular history with the curse.)

Harry cleared his throat. "I'm, uh, I'm Harry. Do you... Where...are we?"

The man shifted in a way that made Harry think he was relaxing a bit. "I am Sal. And I do not know. I woke here some twenty minutes ago." His mouth twisted with a silent snarl. "Sans my wand."

Harry tightened his arms over his chest, feeling at once both more bare and more safe, which was...uncomfortable. "Yeah, me, too. About the wand. I thought–" He huffed out a breath and shoved himself to his feet, because there was no use sitting curled in a corner. "Thought my best mate'd gone and pranked me. He'd pop out and whisk me off home again in another minute."

"Unlikely," Sal said, and point towards some curtains.

Harry opened them to find a window. Outside which raged a blizzard, which explained why he was cold. "Well, crap," he heard himself say, and then he sighed, because random transportation to an unknown location where it was apparently winter and he was trapped with an unknown wizard was just his luck.

"It seems we must simply await the storm's end," Sal said.

"Or rescue from outside," Harry pointed out. Though, if his friends and co-workers all thought he was down with the flu, it could take a couple of weeks for them to check on him. (Hopefully Molly or Ginny would come sooner to check on him. Or maybe even Hermione, who had the knowledge of muggle medicine necessary to think to bring him cough syrup.)

Sal's expression suggested that Harry wasn't the only one of them who didn't expect anyone to come looking for him any time soon, and Harry felt something in his chest sink. "There are warmer clothes and food in the other room," Sal offered, before turning and walking back out of the the room Harry had woken in.

There were indeed warmer things in the other room, and Harry wasted no time in pulling on a warmer coat. There was also a fireplace, which had been lit, next to which the food and some cooking and eating implements had been stacked. Harry'd never cooked in a fireplace before, but he'd done his share of campfire cooking, so he was fairly certain he could manage.

That just left him with Sal.

"Uhm, so. Hi?" Harry said, and almost smacked himself.

Sal blinked at him, slow and unimpressed.

Harry squeezed his eyes shut and covered his face. "That was dumb, I'm so sorry."

Which was about the moment that Sal started letting out warm, slightly strained chuckles. And when Harry opened his eyes to send him a wounded look, he changed to proper laughter, which got Harry going, and they kept laughing until they could barely breathe and had both collapsed to the floor.

Harry felt like they were friends already. And, judging by the faint, almost-friendly smile Sal was sporting, he wasn't the only one.

-0-

When Harry woke again in his bed with his congested everything and the aches and pains of his flu, he closed his eyes and let out a long, heartfelt groan. Because he'd liked chatting with Sal. Who, it turned out, was from a different time period, though Harry had never quite figured out when, and Sal had been firmly closemouthed about it, beyond letting slip he was from Harry's past. Also, he took to telling Harry off any time he tried talking about the history of the modern wizarding world.

'I have no interest in hearing the downs of my future, if it's all the same to you,' he'd said when Harry finally demanded to know why Sal kept interrupting him; if it had been Harry, he'd want to know everything. But, well, most people didn't grow up knowing nothing about their past but lies and heresy, and then grew up in a war where they were one of the main targets.

Over the course of the week they'd been trapped together, Harry'd grown to like Sal. He had a biting wit that reminded Harry of some of his own darker humours, but he was also fair and kind in a way that Harry hadn't expected of someone who'd reminded him so much of Snape upon first meeting.

But all things, it seemed, had to come to an end. They'd both been so excited when it seemed the blizzard was ending, but it seemed that had only been a warning that their time together was at an end.

Harry sighed in regret and got up to find his pills and refill his water glass, which was empty; he couldn't tell if a whole week had passed or not; the whole thing may have just been a fever dream.

And then he found, hanging on the wire rack next to his housecoat, the heavy robe he'd taken to wearing around the little cottage. "What?" he breathed through his congestion, and then he dove for the pocket, scrabbling around inside and finally coming up with a little ball of paper.

At one point not too long after finding out Sal was from a different time, Harry had started pestering Sal to know who he was – at the absolute least, he figured he could leave flowers on his grave – and Sal had eventually given in only so far as to suggest they write their names and the years of their birth on scraps of paper, which they would wait to read until they were safely returned to their present again.

When Harry finally managed to get the paper uncrumpled, he found the following written in a curling hand and started alternately laughing and coughing until his throat felt raw:

'Salazar Slytherin, 967'

.