As You Wish
Chapter Two: The Boy Who Reads


So Harry learned how to read.

Actually, Snape sometimes felt that all he ever really needed to do was to teach the boy the alphabet and how the letters went together and Harry just took it from there.

Harry started in with some old books that Snape had read as a child and then soon enough the brat began pestering him for more books from his library.

"If I find one tiny tear on a page, one single smudge, I will carve pieces out of your hide for potions ingredients," Snape threatened.

"As you wish." A careful hand gently turned a page.

"Will you stop saying that?"

Snape could have sworn Harry smirked before burying his nose in the book again.

So Harry read in the mornings before they had breakfast. And during breakfast as well, despite Snape's warnings that he would get foodstains on the book. Harry, in fact, became quite adept at eating and reading and keeping the book neat at the same time. He read in the afternoons after chores and he read in the evenings by candlelight. He read so much that he eventually needed to wear spectacles.

Snape, as usual, couldn't resist scolding him, even as he gave Harry his new pair of glasses. "I told you that you were going to strain your eyes."

"I know." The young man tried them on, blinked twice and then his face brightened. The glasses oddly suited him, even if they hid his lovely green eyes (Snape frowned mentally at that last thought: where in Merlin's name did that come from?). "This is much better. Thank you."

"I am so glad that my lessons in manners were heeded. For once," Snape said tartly.

"I do learn," Harry told him. "Even if you deny it half the time." He picked up the latest book he was engrossed in, took up his place in the ratty old armchair that had been his ever since he came to live with Snape and went back to read. "There are so many worlds here…" He murmured dreamily.

"What on earth are you blathering about?"

"In here," Harry pointed at the book. "There are so many worlds in these pages. And different ways of seeing things. It's fascinating, really."

Enthralled, that was what the boy looked like. Utterly enthralled. Snape knew that feeling once, long ago when he too had been very, very young.

So he simply said, "I know." And Harry smiled at him and went back to his book.

Snape went back to check the potion he was currently brewing, not quite knowing why he felt so…content.

Of course, while Harry read, he learned and gods, how very much he learned. This time, the brat pestered him with countless questions and came up with his own opinions which resulted in some very lively debates between them. And this time, Harry began winning quite a substantial number of those debates, a fact that made Snape feel both put out and secretly pleased at the same time.

Obviously, Harry was never swindled in the marketplace ever again.

Most of the people in their village rather liked the quiet young man (he was only ever mouthy when provoked and usually by Snape) and preferred to deal with him rather than his crotchety Master. He came to live with Snape when he lost his parents at the age of fifteen and the villagers were all afraid for the boy at first, knowing Snape's temper. They were all quite amazed to see the young man out and about, quite healthy and whole, with his spirit unbroken.

"He's very temperamental but he's actually quite kind, really," Harry once told a concerned mother. And then he grinned, mischievously. "Just don't tell him I said that."

So it was to Harry that the villagers came to when they needed medicines and other things from the Potions Master or help from the odd boggart in the closet or troll that came a-wandering into the village. And Harry never minded acting as the go-between between them and Snape.

And then, there were the village girls.

The giggling, swoony, silly, moony girls.

Harry had no idea why they followed after him everywhere he went, sighing and batting their eyelashes and gently twirling their soft locks round their fingers. Sometimes he felt that he was rather like a mother duck trailed by ducklings. It was utterly ridiculous.

Snape didn't help things either. Every time he sent Harry off on an errand, instead of saying goodbye like any other sensible person would, he would sneer at the gaggle of girls who would eventually gather at the gate (braving the Potions Master's ire and all) and say, "Hurry along, boy. Your fans await."

The fact of the matter was, that unlike Snape, Harry could actually be considered one of the most handsome men in the world. Quite gorgeous, actually. There was something about his eyes, which were a lovely shade of emerald green, and the way he smiled, which could light up a room, that could quite take a person's breath away.

If you told Harry all that he would laugh in your face. He knew perfectly well what he looked like and that was a skinny runt who looked a little too young for his age (he was nineteen years old, for the love of Merlin!), with messy hair that refused to ever obey a comb and knobbly knees.

"Raving nutters, the lot of them," Harry told Snape one day when he suddenly burst inside the cottage and slammed the door behind him, locking it securely. The loud bang almost made the Potions Master add too much wormwood in his latest potion and he swore, quite loudly:

"Damnation, boy - what on earth is the matter with you?"

"It's the girls," Harry said, checking the windows and twitching the curtains closed. "Off their rockers, all of them. It's mad, is what it is."

"Oh for the love of Merlin, boy - they fancy you!" Snape finally said in exasperation. "Do I need to get you a new pair of spectacles and ban you from reading at night altogether?"

The young man stopped and stared at Snape. "Fancy me? Whatever for?"

Oh dear God, Snape thought, feeling an unaccustomed flush staining his normally pale cheeks. "Didn't anybody explain the facts of life to you?"

"You're not making any sense at this point, you realize."

"Watch your tongue, boy - haven't I wasted enough of my precious time teaching you manners?"

"All right. Sir," Harry added quickly. "Please explain to me what is it you're talking about."

Snape sighed. "The fact of the matter is that you are a beautiful young man and the little chits out there have quite noticed that and they are taken with you as a result. And if you have any sense, you'll eventually notice one of them in particular, marry her and make lots of brats of your own and I shall be out an assistant."

"Oh."

"Do close your mouth, boy, you're spoiling those looks when you gape unattractively like that." Snape reached out with one long finger and nudged Harry's chin up.

"So you think I'm beautiful, then?" Harry asked him and there was something in those green eyes that made Snape suddenly feel like one of those swoony, silly, moony village girls. He ruthlessly squashed that nameless feeling, grinding it under the heel of his dragonhide boot and forced himself to squarely meet the brat's (young man, a little voice in the back of his mind corrected) unwavering gaze.

"A very dispassionate observation, I assure you," Snape said quite frostily. "Don't let it go to your head."

That smile again, which made that strange feeling that Snape thought he'd already squelched out of existence, come alive once more. "As you wish," Harry said then, quite cheerfully. And set about putting away the potions ingredients, not to mention the food, that he bought for the week.

Snape really, really wished Harry would stop saying that.

- TBC -