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Chapter 3

Harry

"You still haven't eaten anything." Now Harry is starting to worry. "Are you going to take some to eat in your rooms?"

The older man raises a single eyebrow. "How, may I ask, does what I do concern you?"

Harry shrugs and answers honestly, "I don't want you to starve."

Snape narrows his eyes, picks up his fork, and takes a bite without breaking eye contact, swallowing pointedly.

Harry's eyes watch Snape's lips close around the fork, and then drop to Snape's throat as he swallows. He has no idea why he suddenly feels so uncomfortable.

Harry quickly looks away and busies himself with piling a plate with food and standing up. "Come on."

"Are you speaking to me, Potter? What makes you think I'll do whatever you say?" Snape doesn't move a muscle.

Harry begins to walk towards Snape's quarters. "You promised!" Harry gets the feeling that as complicated of a person Snape may be, he's good for his promises.

Or so he hopes.

Severus

"Eat." Potter places the plate in front of him and Severus has to make an effort to keep the surprise from his face. He thought the plate was for Potter. That boy has an atrocious appetite.

Severus does eat, hating himself for obeying Potter and hating Potter for being so stupidly considerate. Severus covers his mouth with his hand, trying not to appear self-conscious. About anything. Including his rooms.

"Bare." Potter has no tact to speak of.

Severus finds himself wanting to reply honestly, so he does. Which is another surprise. "I'm not partial to them."

Potter's brow furrows and Severus gets a hold of himself. He doesn't want the Chosen One's pity. "But this is your home."

"This is where I live," Severus corrects the boy, "I have no home." He did not just say that. He did not just say that. Potter's face softens, and Severus almost melts under his gaze because for once it isn't hateful- and Severus can't stand it. "You have questions." It's an abrupt statement, not a question.

"You fancied my mum?"

No tact. No considerations. Salazar. "No. I cared for her as a friend, not…" not the way I care for you, "not as a lover."

Potter looks confused. "But… you seemed so… she seemed so important to you."

Important and in love are different things, Potter. Your mother was important to me. I am in love with you. Severus only replies, "She was my only friend." Severus wants to avada himself right now.

"Oh."

Severus doesn't need to be judged by Potter to know he's an utter failure of a person. "You cannot be surprised," he sneers. "You are not the only one who hates me, and I'm not exactly a social butterfly, now, am I?"

Potter looks surprised- and Severus is too because since when does he talk? At all? He just keeps dropping his shields like Longbottom drops plants and teacups and cauldrons and his wand and anything else handheld.

"I don't hate you." And hell the boy means it, because the bloody honest idiot has never learned how to lie. Or even keep his mouth shut.

Salazar, he needs to get a hold of himself.

"What was she like?" It's weird because Potter is to be vulnerable right back. It's like Potter has no sense of self preservation at all. Which he doesn't.

Severus, staring down, answers.

Potter soaks each word up like a sponge and a strange, wistful smile that makes Severus' heart ache.

Afterwards, Severus breaks the silence with a question that he's been meaning to ask for a while. "Why did you…" Severus cannot, will not, say save my life. "Bring me back and clear my name? You-" he almost says hate, "dislike me."

Potter sighs and gestures to them, sitting in Severus' quarters, at the table. "I wanted to ask you stuff."

Sometimes Potter's honesty is brutal.

Potter steps in and they begin with questions, but soon Potter has Severus on his knees-

Severus sits up, and it's like the venom has returned because there's a headache as painful as looking into the sun.

A headache won't stop lust, however, and Severus cannot resist pulling a particularly enticing picture of Potter and having a brilliant wank, ending with a shout and three fingers up his arse.

It isn't fair that someone can be so perfect. So perfect that it hurts.

The steam of the brew is hot, and the air in the dungeon is cold. It's hot and cold and Severus is tired and he had a headache, and Potter looks concerned.

"Professor, are you alright?" Professor. Better than Snape.

Severus scowls. "I'm fine, you idiot, just sleep deprived." That is part of the truth. Sleep deprived. Food deprived. Not fully recovered anyway. Not that Potter actually cares.

"You seem a bit… off your game today."

"Not all of us have as much energy as you do, Potter." Severus stops writing because his hand is shaking. That much is true. Potter's energy seemed endless. Severus does not find it endearing.

"Erm…"

"I'm fine. Now leave me alone before I force you out. I have no qualms about hurting you." That was a lie.

Truly, sentimentality was a headache.

Harry

Harry shuffles about the room, spelling cloths to wipe down tables, vanishing clumsy spills, placing leftover potion ingredients into jars they belong in.

Until Snape faints.

Harry is mildly gleeful that he was right until he realizes that Snape wasn't wrong. The stubborn git was just hiding it.

Harry sighs.

It only takes a couple minutes for Harry to carry Snape delicately to Poppy, but a couple minutes is enough for Harry to look curiously at how peaceful Snape's face seems without a severe scowl. Or snarl. Or sneer. Or glare.

It almost made Snape seem less like a dungeness wombat and more of a human.

A dark, brooding, angry, infuriating, greasy human.

"Let me know?" he requests hopefully as he hands Snape over to Poppy.

He places Snape into the bed that she's finished setting up. "Of course."

Severus

Severus has unconsciously burrowed into someone's chest- a nice chest, hard with muscles but not uncomfortable. Just firm enough to be sexy.

He jerks his head up to find… oh Salazar have mercy.

Harry bloody Potter. Severus shouldn't even be surprised.

"Put me down," he demands immediately. It sounds like a croak. Merlin, this is mortifying.

"Actually, Professor, no. I don't plan to listen to anything you say 'cuz I said you didn't seem okay and you said blah blah blah Potter, I'm fine, and then you went and fainted and now you're sick. So." Potter carries Severus as though he weighs nothing… it's a bit romantic, really.

His heart is starting to race, and it's making his head pound harder.

Potter tosses floo powder into the fireplace. "What's going on?"

"Taking you to my place. That magical fever you got is super picky- or whatever she said. Sensitive- that's what Poppy said." How did Potter pass… anything? "Anyway, you don't do well with magic so we couldn't levitate you or cast a shield charm to make sure you won't, like, give it to anyone else, and we don't really know how to-"

Potter, having no sense of sentences, steps into the fireplace in the middle on one. "-to heal you- Yet! Yet! So Poppy said I'd care for you here at my place-"

"Your place?" The halls were dark wood. Grimmauld Place. "Potter, get me out of here now. I will not be staying at your place and I will absolutely not have you of all bumbling idiots attempting to administer any kind of so-called care upon me. I'm likely to be dead by the end of the hour!"

Potter lays Severus down on the couch, a hand laid firmly on Severus' chest. "Look, for now at least try not to hate me," Potter sighs, running a hand through his nest of curls.

"I don't." Severus clarifies. "I am, however, aware of your inability to complete the simplest of tasks-"

"Snape!" Severus stiffens.

"Black." he growls. "What the hell are you doing here?"