Title: The Sketchbook, the grump and the wheelchair
Written for: meeee
Ratings and Warnings: Mentions of genitalia, also strong language at times
Word Count: Around 33k all together
Summary: The Boy Who Lived had grown up to be The Man Who Lived in a Wheelchair, and although he's quite happy with a life of solitude and sketching - everyone else seem to think they know better. Will the reappearance of Professor Severus Snape in his life change things for the better, or will it end in aggravation like always?
Author notes: Warning for chapter containing genitalia. Also Harry continuing to be a total idiot. Thanks again for all the views, follows, favs and reviews.
**THIS WORLD AND ITS CHARACTERS ARE NOT MY PROPERTY AND I MAKE NO MONEY FROM THEM. I JUST LOVE THEM AND ALSO WANT THEM TO LOVE EACH OTHER**
It was a long way home, and he was glad that Snape wasn't around when he arrived. Sweat rolled down his forehead and back, and his hair stuck unpleasantly to the back of his neck. He managed not to knock anything down as he went straight to the bathroom to wipe his face and put everything away. His wheels squeaked on the tiles as he used the sink to lever himself round and access the bags. He balanced them on the toilet lid, then flopped back into the chair for a moment's rest. Easy. Absolutely nothing to worry about.
It had taken him much longer to get home than it had to get into town. He'd had to stop several times to rest his arms, and they now felt like heavy lumps attached to his shoulders, immovable as his legs. He had to move them anyway - he had a lot to do before Snape came looking.
He put away the shampoo, shaving foam and razor without incident, each feeling like they were made of lead. When he pulled out the soap bars, he knocked the second bag from its perch, sending twenty packs of cigarettes clattering across the floor. Fuck.
He used his hands on the arms of his chair to shift his bum back, manoeuvred his legs to the side one at a time and tried to reach the floor. His fingers just barely skimmed the cardboard packets, and he couldn't quite pick them up. Trying made his back ache, so he sat back and sighed. Double fuck and damn.
Whatever, he could get them later. He ignored them in favour of the bath. If he'd thought he'd ever be in this position, he'd have had a shower installed like Hermione suggested along with a million other improvements like hand rails and some kind of levitating toilet seat that picked you up out of the chair. Regardless, he needed to wash before Snape could see the state he was in. He imagined what the potions master might assume on seeing his patient pale, shaking and covered head to toe in sweat.
He turned on the hot tap, which gurgled a few times before spitting out water. He let the water carry the plug down, then poked it with a long bottle of bubble bath to secure it in the plug hole. So far so good, he reversed back out of the room, taking the peacocks bag with him.
The chest of drawers for his clothes was easy to manage. The drawers ran on plastic muggle casters that were thankfully smooth to pull. He picked out a clean outfit, combed his hair and placed a towel on his lap. He returned to the bathroom just in time to stop it from getting too full, which would have been a disaster considering he couldn't pull the plug to let out water. He tested the temperature with an elbow. Too hot, and without magic he had no choice but to wait for it to cool by itself.
In the meantime, he closed the door and undressed himself. This was no more a task than usual, as he hadn't worked out any useful spells for it, except that he had to take it slow for his exhaustion. He threw his dirty washing into the basket, wondering if Snape would be cleaning them from now on. He couldn't imagine trying to drag that thing through the house to the machine. Did Snape even know how to use a muggle washing machine?
He gave the cigarettes another go, this time lowering himself carefully to the ground using the chair and toilet seat. He fell the last few inches, bumping on the floor. Once down there, he noted how cold the tiles felt against his hands, yet his naked legs and buttocks felt nothing. His legs stretched out in front of him, reminding him that yes they did go further than the knee, despite the fact that he never actually saw the rest of them. Even now they weren't flat or straight, but stuck in a permanent bend with his feet curled inwards. He fumbled open a cardboard packet and pulled out a menthol with a relieved sigh. Yes, this was just what he needed after the long day he'd had.
Except how was he supposed to light it?
Even knowing there was nothing, he cast about for a long-forgotten lighter or a box of matches. A flint and steel. A few sticks. Anything, really. He couldn't even take light from a candle, because Hermione had insisted it was safer to fill the place with bright muggle lighting, in case he knocked one and burnt the house down. He didn't feel like that would be such a tragedy right now.
He sat for a while, fag hanging forlorn from his lip, back pressed uncomfortably into his knobbly wheelchair. He'd have to get up at some point, but he didn't have the energy. Then again, if he took too long then Snape might come looking... And find Harry sitting naked in a sea of cigarettes he couldn't light, next to a bath he couldn't get in by himself.
Oh, fuck it. Snape had said he could cast one or two small charms, and it probably wouldn't make a difference today, would it? He made a small flame to light the cigarette in his shaking fingers, and took a deep satisfying drag.
While he was here and naked with nothing better to do as he waited for the bath to cool, he let his free hand explore the flesh he usually kept covered. Running his fingers from stomach to leg was a strange experience - down to a certain point just above the hip bone, he could feel both his fingers on his belly and his belly under his fingers. Then suddenly it was like laying hands on a stranger, for all he could feel his own hand.
There was sometimes a patch on the inside of his left leg where he thought he could catch a ghost of sensation, but not today. Inevitably, slowly, he was drawn from legs to the true source of interest. His dick sat flaccid and lifeless between his legs, as useless for masturbation as it had been for sex. He held it in his hand, trying to remember what it had felt like to hold before.
His heart picked up a more rapid beat, but there was no effect on the thing in his hand. Still, it was somewhat satisfying to hold it, to know it was still there. It was almost like holding someone else's. Well, he thought it was. He hadn't actually done anything like that, but still... He took another long drag of the cigarette, dropping his head back to stare at the smoke rising to the ceiling as his mind wandered. He used this cigarette to light another when it was almost done.
He shouldn't have gone into town today. He could have put off bathing for a few days, time enough to work out a new system. With the way he looked and smelled now, he didn't have that choice. And it only took the last few minutes to tell that he didn't have the arm strength to manoeuvre himself in and out of the chair with any precision. He could fall out of the chair in a somewhat controlled way, and he could - probably - crawl and climb his way back into it, but moving and rotating himself to get on the toilet was going to be... A challenge.
Sighing, he reached for the edge of the tub and pulled himself closer. Now that he'd used one spell for lighting a fag, it would be silly not to levitate himself into the bath. But then, Snape had said no wandless magic whatsoever and he'd already broken that rule once. "Come on, just get it over with," he muttered. "You can do it the muggle way at least once, can't you?" Then again, it wasn't like muggle paraplegics went around putting themselves in bathtubs, was it? They had people to help with that kind of thing.
He carefully put his fag down on the side of the bath, and two more next to it so that he could hopefully keep the chain going until he was done washing. Then he kept hold of the tub with one hand and used the other to bend his legs round to face the right way, as gently as he could considering their weight. He could easily break them, moving about like this. Then he got the best hold he could on the enamel tub and pulled himself up. Well, he tried to. He hadn't thought until now how much like doing a pull-up this would be, and he hadn't been able to do any of those even when he'd been young and strong. He reached further up and hooked his elbows over instead, then tried again with a grunt.
Grinding his teeth to prevent any more sound from escaping, he heaved up and levered his torso over the edge, breathing heavily as he balanced there. His arms weren't shaking so much as vibrating uncontrollably. Slowly, he transferred the weight onto his stomach, bent over the side of the bath like a wet towel. It must have put pressure in the wrong place, because he heard a spattering noise and knew it must be piss. Cool. Just... Something he would have to clean up later. Somehow.
He tried to calm down, taking slow breaths as he studied his reflection in the clear water. There were no mirrors in the house so he didn't see himself often. He was bone-thin. Not just his legs, as he had already known, but it showed on his face too. He looked ill.
Duh.
He memorised it for drawing later, everything he could. Right down to the reflection of his reflection in his eyes, and the threads of wavy hair that wound down the side of his nose. Studying all of this helped him regain composure, and his beating heart slowed to an almost normal rhythm.
With a last heroic push, he threw out his left hand to catch the other side of the tub. For a moment he was stable, torso held over the water with support from the edge of the tub, legs stretched out behind him uselessly. Steam rose from the water to join his sweat, rolling from his forehead down the side of his nose. Next, he just had to figure out a way to get his legs in before the rest of him. Maybe if he moved his hips like thi-
"Shit!" He plummeted head-first into the water, legs following behind and forcing his face to scrape along the bottom of the bath. He bonked his head at the end, and the last of his breath escaped him. Fuck, he was going to drown. Harry Potter, hero of the wizarding world, was going to drown in a fucking bathtub. His arms flailed wildly as he took in a lungful of water.
Just in time, he managed to turn around and yank himself up to the surface. On the way up, he caught the side of his eye socket on the hot metal tap. The surprise pushed him momentarily back under water, then he resurfaced coughing.
"Shit!" he gasped, then coughed again as the water up his nose sank unpleasantly to the back of his throat. "Shit, shit, shit, fucking SHIT!" He managed to twist himself into a sitting position at the wrong end of the bath, tap nudging him in the back. Water sloshed in waves over the side onto the tiled floor, one more impossible task for later.
Angry tears prevented his clogged eyes from clearing, and he felt along the edge of the bath for his cigarettes. They were soaked.
When the tears finally broke and rolled down his cheeks, he told himself it was because he'd hurt his eye and not because he was a pathetic excuse for a man who couldn't do anything for himself.
"Shit."
Later, after washing, draining the water, drying himself and falling inelegantly but purposefully out onto the wet floor, after crawling and climbing up the toilet, desperately using whatever he could as leverage... After everything, he sat in his chair in his bedroom, clean and dressed, and wrote a note. It wasn't just the ache in his arms that made the words appear slowly.
Can't use magic. I need help
He crossed out that last bit, scribbling over it hard so it wasn't possible even to guess what words had been written under the giant blob of ink.
Can't use magic. Bathroom's a nightmare. Don't tell Snape.
There. He wasn't begging for help, he told himself. Just keeping her up to date with current events, how things were coming along. What she did with that information was nothing to do with him. It wasn't because he couldn't do it alone. Not because he wasn't good enough.
oOoOoOoOoOo
Bonus Author's Note: Just a note to say that there are many types of disabilities, and although Harry doesn't have the use of his little guy in this one story it's not representative of every person in a wheelchair ever. I realised that I don't really enjoy writing smut, so my stories don't have any/much of that stuff, and I think it's against rules anyway, but y'all should just be aware that people with disabilities can has sex lives too. That is all.