Title: Lessons in Time Management, Reputation, and Job Hunting
Author: Unscathed
Disclaimer: They're not mine. I just knock them over and play with them, and dress them up in funny clothing and make them talk in high-pitched accents. They belong to J.K. Rowling and her gang of heartless publishers. (Just give me the fifth book and I'll forgive all past sins…until I'm finished with it.)
Warnings: Severus Snape/Harry Potter. That line between their names is a slash. It means they are together. They might hug, they might kiss, they might have hot, wild screaming monkey sex (Just not on FFN!). If this thought nauseates or sickens you…go away. If you chose not to heed my warning and send me nasty letters, all the more fool you are.
***
Harry Potter woke with his hair in the strangest arrangement it had ever been in. Glued upwards by things that Harry decided he probably didn't want to analyze, it had hardened into an obscene position and refused to straighten. Harry patted vaguely at it, blinked up at the ceiling, and poked his bedpartner.
One black eye opened in a sleepy glare, and Harry almost winced, then he remembered that it was highly unlikely that Severus would or could actually hurt him, and the man was still asleep. Harry poked him again for good measure, and got a grunt. Better.
"Where's the shower?"
Another grunt, and the eye closed. Harry sighed, tugged on the nearest bit of flesh (that wasn't his own) and repeated the question. It happened to be an elbow. Two eyes opened this time, stared Harry straight in the face, and Severus Snape grumbled, "if lizard eyes then gallbladder stone potion acidic fumes glarble brew five hours…" Both eyes closed again.
Well, it was nice that Severus trusted him enough to remain asleep around him, but really. It was rude. The man was host, after all. Harry tugged on the elbow, and through careful application of noise and shoving, got Severus Snape on his feet and off the bed. The man was still dead asleep.
With some difficulties, mostly due to leading a zombie around by the hand, Harry found the bathroom, and eventually, the shower. Black eyes opened and closed occasionally, and must have worked, as the man didn't run into any walls, though it was a close call. Harry sighed, wondering why his insides felt like so much mush, and started the shower. Severus's hair was in nearly as bad a state as Harry's own. If he hadn't known Severus at all, the look would have been cute.
Somewhere in the middle of being pelted with warm water, Severus Snape woke up. It was amazing how menacingly the man could glare while tiny white bubbles trailed over his head and off the tip of his nose. Harry grinned, tried to look repentant, and decided to keep grinning.
"Taking advantage of me while I'm asleep, Potter—"
"Harry," Harry corrected, leaning in close. "And I didn't take advantage. This is taking advantage." He proceeded to demonstrate.
A while later, and a great deal of water on the tiles in the bathroom and on the bedsheets, Harry sighed and shifted against the mattress. Severus, lying next to him, grunted, muttered something unintelligible into the pillow.
"Hnh?" Harry asked into the duvet.
"What time is't?"
Harry stared at the knickknack and clock-free bedside table and said, "Eleven-thirty-two." There was a gutted candle, a green handkerchief, and a tiny glass with a film of green liquid on the bottom. Good Dreams potion, judging from the consistency and shade, page two-hundred-twenty-three of Potions Manual (by Elvera Comstock), utilizing mainly nettle, chamomile, pixie powder, lacewings, ground moonsnail shells, and asphodel… Harry blinked.
"Nnh."
"Eleven-thirty?" Severus mumbled.
"Nnh. Thirty-five."
Severus moved, almost quiet enough to keep the mattress from shivering under them both. A long fingered hand ran up Harry's bared spine and ruffled his damp hair, which was still in some sort of arrangement that just didn't go with societal norms. Harry sniffed.
"We should clean up if we're to be out before noon," Severus murmured roughly from somewhere over Harry's shoulder blades. Harry said 'nnh' again, and rolled over.
They were ten minutes past noon by the time they finally got out of Severus's house. Harry ran one hand over his unruly hair, one down the front of his green robes, and looked around Diagon Alley. It was amazing how easy Apparating made travel.
Despite everything, Diagon didn't look different, if you didn't look very close. Coloured robes span in rainbows as multicoloured witches and wizards traipsed around. Right. Harry tried not to look at the memories etched on every face, and stepped forward into the sunlight.
Severus led him almost to the end of the Alley, into a spacious shop simply labeled "Madame Bird's" in a dark scrawl. They were no customers in the place and the shopkeeper, curled over a limp magazine, didn't so much as look up when the tinny bell rang.
"Birdie," Severus said calmly, looking not the least put off by the complete lack of greeting.
"Severus," the tiny witch replied, without looking up. Her voice was almost as high as the bell above the door, and her eyes were still fixed on her magazine, which, Harry noted with some discomfort, was a copy of the current Witch's Weekly, boasting a broad picture of Harry Potter on the front. The picture was, thankfully, rather dated. The only pictures Harry had seen of himself lately were all too depressing to consider. Wizarding pictures showed far too well the pain of war. "I suppose you would have brought me a new potion-maker, then?" Her tone was bitter.
New. Harry felt sick to his stomach. He was a replacement for someone who had died in the war. He turned away, glaring at an innocent box of rat tails. Severus's hand brushed his own, clinging and letting go. Trust me, the brief grip said. Harry scowled harder, wishing he were anywhere but there.
"What's his name, then?"
Oh dread. Harry hung his head as Severus replied, with sinister chill, "Harry Potter."
The witch's head came up in a flash of wide black eyes. The surprise faded almost as quick as it had come, into a look so calculating she could have been related to Severus but for the tell-tale blonde roots of her black-as-midnight hair and her strangely pert nose. "Harry Potter," she repeated, sounding almost calm. She was glowering narrowly at Severus, her eyes already having made the quick trip from the damp bottom of Harry's robe to his unkempt hair.
Harry had the strangest urge to say, 'Harry James Potter, so nice to meet you,' in his most cheerful tone, but it didn't look like a good time. A door tinkled. Harry tensed, then realized that the sound hadn't come from behind him, but from across the shop. Seeing that Severus and the witch had entered into some sort of sinister staring contest, Harry went to investigate the other door. Almost.
Severus's hand shot out, grabbed his wrist in a death-grip, and released as quickly as it had appeared. Another 'trust me' grip? Harry smiled serenely to himself, let his fingers twine reassuringly with Severus's, and slipped away between the shelves.
He found the intruder riffling through a tray of vials that Harry was sure weren't regulation. Harry identified most of them on sight, at least half he'd had to make during the war, with Snape standing over his shoulder. Severus. Snape. Severus. Hmm. "Hmmm," Harry said aloud, waiting for the mouselike man to jump.
The wizard didn't jump. One gray eye appeared beneath a cloud of matted brown hair. The man grumbled something, Harry was sure it wasn't a complement, under his breath, plucked up an acid-green vial, and stood. The top of his head barely reached Harry's shoulder, but the wizard didn't seem the least daunted. "Birdie," he called in a rough voice.
"Yes, Trek?" came the witch's shrill voice, sounding absolutely normal, other than the shrillness. Harry wondered if the staring contest were over yet.
"Harry Potter's in your shop."
There was a silence. After a long moment Birdie called calmly back, "I am aware of that, Trek."
The wizard cursed, ran a grimy hand down the front of his grimy robe and called back, "I'm taking fireweed," he called back toward the counter.
"Fine," the shrill voice called back.
Trek 'harrumphed' triumphantly at Harry, drew himself up to his miniscule height and scampered out the door into Knockturn Alley. Knockturn Alley. Harry went to the door, stared out the glass panes into the dim of the Alley, glanced back over his shoulder toward the door to Diagon Alley. The paint around the edges of the door under his hands was cracked and peeling. And green. Harry sighed, brushed paint chips of his fingertips, and plucked up an unfamiliar potion from the tray.
"Sev…" he said when he'd made his way back to the man's side, and the staring contest ended abruptly when Severus turned to face him.
"Harry?"
Harry moved a bit closer, letting his free hand touch Severus's, and blinked into the witch's sharp stare. He held up the potion for the other man to see. "What's this?"
Birdie made the sound of choked laughter, her stern face suddenly falling into mirth. "Severus, you never taught him how to make love potions?" She grinned widely, and Harry was relieved to see that none of her teeth were rotting. Knockturn Alley indeed.
Severus drew himself up to his full height, putting on his most Snape-like expression. Harry got chills just looking at it. It was like being plunged back into first year. He toyed absently with the potion in his hands until Snape's chill fingers snatched it up. "Love potions," the man said in an arctic tone, "are useless, silly bits of childish drivel invented to hook fools into spending time and energy on the vain imaginings of love."
Birdie snorted. "Come off it, Severus. You can't actually believe that?" She toyed with a fold in her robe, confronted with the full severity of Snape's expression. "You mean no love potion actually works?"
Severus smiled. "Mere aphrodisiacs to inspire lust."
Birdie took one look at him and blanched. "Tell me, Severus," she said, regaining her composure, though her fingers still toyed with the cloth. "Do you pride yourself in being nasty?"
Severus merely smiled, letting his eyes narrow in a look that had scared countless witless first years into fits. He'd made no small number of little girls cry with that look. A few boys, too.
Harry leaned close, thinking about all the years he'd been on the receiving end of that nastiness, thinking of what it had finally amounted to, and smiled. A little snake on top of a mantle had his eyes. If they were speaking the same language after all…
Birdie crowed with laughter as Snape faded like a wisp. "Ah, how the mighty have fallen!" she wailed. "Keep him, Severus. Keep him! That one is not afraid of you."
Severus trembled slightly under Harry's hand. He cleared his throat, drawing himself up. But his gaze had softened, his eyes were warm charcoal, and he was looking at Harry with something between despair and affection. Something else, too, always something else in the back of those heavy eyes. Sadness was to weak to describe it. Harry felt a lump form in the back of his own throat, wanted to cry right then and there, but for the weight of Severus's gaze on him.
The bloody war was over, and they stood in a shop somewhere between Knockturn and Diagon Alley, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Too many deaths could not be ignored. Too much betrayal could not been undone, but Severus Snape was there, where he had always been. Always watching. The flavor of his gaze was different now, despair tinged with affection, hate with trust. Sadness. Harry wondered if than indefinable element had ever been missing from Severus's gaze. A lost teacher confronted with his eleven-year old failure, a former Death Eater faced with return to his crimes.
War changed everything. Harry could bet that Birdie's gaze had been sharper at one point, that she had probably not let the blonde roots show beneath the black of her dyed hair. Severus had never looked quite like that, his hate had never been so tinged with knowledge at the roots and leavings of hatred.
Birdie shifted, looking almost abashed at the thoughtful silence her outbreak had created. "So," she said, clearing her throat tactlessly. "You can make potions, then?"
Harry glanced away, feeling the weight of Severus's presence and suddenly wondering just what there was between them. He felt that any wrong move would shatter something. "I do," he said abruptly. "Passably well." He cleared his throat, too, glanced awkwardly up at Severus's face and back down to the shopkeeper's. "I passed Potions."
It had been on the strength of his extracurricular work, mostly. His shrinking draught had been a little thin, and perhaps a shade grayer than it should have, but his Incindius potion had come out perfect. He'd passed, somewhere in the middle of that war, out of the role as Hogwarts student. He'd even made grades, though they had meant little, even to Hermione Granger. Harry bit his lips.
The witch cocked one eyebrow at him, shrugged for effect, and said in an offhand tone, "You're hired." Harry caught the harsh sparkle in her eyes even as he felt Severus stiffen beside him.
"What?" Severus demanded, almost quivering with Snape-like rage. "You'd hire him without so much as an interview? Without so much as a try-out?"
Birdie smiled, and Harry suddenly wanted to hide behind a shelf before it got out of hand. "Of course, Severus," she murmured in a voice as cloying as honey. "You passed him, after all. I trust you."
Fuel to the fire. Harry winced, taking a step back as Severus drew himself up. All heat seemed to disappear in a good two-foot radius from Severus's towering form. Harry blinked, trying not to smile at how well Birdie's ploy had worked, and glanced toward the woman herself.
Her expression was triumphant, but Harry could see nervousness in her eyes. She was probably an old student, trying hard to get one back at the mean old potions master. And coming out the loser in a confrontation with Severus Snape. Harry almost choked on his laughter. Would he have turned out like that, if things had been different? Would Severus even have cared to replace his workers if Harry had owned a shop instead of the shattered memories of war? What if Harry hadn't been James's son? Harry fidgeted, running his fingernail along the seam of his robe and wondering if he should be jealous over the affect one tiny shopkeeper had over Severus's anger. He wondered if he even had a right to be jealous at all.
"Severus," Harry said, before the cold silence could give way to cold words. Black eyes turned his way. "I need a job."
Birdie snorted, eyes flickering nervously to him. There was something like gratitude in the dark irises. In a flash of inspiration, Harry muttered an anti-glamour and saw that her eyes had been coloured, like her hair. He shook the minor spell off, wondering why he even cared that the woman dyed her hair and eyes black. She was just pretending.
Severus's black eyes met Harry's, and the thoughts passed between them, thicker than Harry could understand. One black eyebrow arched perfectly toward the shopkeeper. Pretender, the sarcasm in Severus's eyes drawled. 'Wannabe'. Harry wanted to laugh. Inside jokes with Severus Snape. Lord, but the post-war world was strange. Harry nodded acknowledgement.
"Birdie," Severus said, his tone solemn. "When will you be wanting Harry back for work?"
Birdie blinked, looking disheartened. "Monday evening."
Harry glanced over, running a hand through the fringe of his hair. "What time?"
"Seven."
Severus nodded, as if the time fit perfectly with his schedule. As if the schedule of Harry's days was his. Harry felt a warm quiver in his chest and tried to ignore it.
"He will be back then." Severus took Harry's elbow and proceeded to lead him toward the door. Battle's over, the unspoken message was. Severus won. Of course.
There was a shuffle of sound. "Severus," Birdie called, sounding shriller than normal. Severus paused and did not turn. Harry glanced back over his shoulder at the little witch. She held out the opalescent vial.
"I owe you, Severus," she said calmly, her expression brightly false. "Take this as just the beginning of payment." And she levitated the glass into Harry's hand with a flick of her wand. "I'll see you on Monday, Harry."
Game set and match. Harry led Severus out into the sunlight.