Author's Note:

Hey, hey!  Long time no see!  ::smiles sheepishly::  Sorry.  Next time I don't update for a hundred days, hit me over the head with an e-mail.

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The Spells We Know

by Galae

Chapter 6:  The Awakening

Snape never touched him again, after that night.  Harry came to him sporadically, and they always made potions together, but Snape never touched him. 

Harry never said anything about it.

Hermione, ever watchful, asked him, "Why do you sneak off to in the middle of the night?"

He was prepared for this.  Being with Snape taught him to read people, to anticipate.  "Really, Hermione, what do people do when they sneak off in the middle of the night?"

She blushed so furiously that Harry thought she was going to choke.  Now, at least that's solved.

The fairs were still going on, but to Harry they lost most of their radiance.  Even the meals, normally so rowdy and exciting the Weasley antics, were now stifling.  Harry found himself always looking up, scanning the crowd for the proper second and a half before resting on his target.  Snape always remained oblivious.  He came, he ate, and he left.  Never once in that sequence did he lift up his eyes to see Harry watching him.

So all it came down to was Harry going to his office at nine o'clock, and reading aloud from recipes for curing headaches, revitalizing pumpkins, and improved cleaning agents.  Snape listened to them dutifully, instructed succinctly, and stirred his cauldron.

"Damn it!" Harry said one night.  "I'm starting to think that you manipulated that spell so that you'd gain a free assistant for your prosaic potion-making!"

"Big words," Snape murmured.  "Does your brain hurt, Mr. Potter?"

"Don't you think that you could maybe, oh, come to terms with the name 'Harry'?"

"Temper, temper.  You must learn to control it, Potter."

"You ignominious bastard . . ."

Whoops.  That may be going a little too far.  But to his surprise, Snape smiled.

"Excellent.  You might prove halfway a decent equal for me someday."

All that's left of Harry's patience flew out the window.  "What's wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with me?" Snape asked.  His paring knife flew through the cricket wings.

Harry resisted the urge to shove that knife down his throat.  "How can you act like this?"

"Like what?"

"Like . . . nothing happened!"

"Nothing did," Snape reminded him.  "And nothing will."

"What?  How could you say that?  You know full well that there's something between us.  If you're going to totally ignore this . . . whatever this is . . . Then why do you want me here?  Why don't you tell me to get the hell out so I could at least carry on with my life?  Why are you leading me on like this?  Is anything going to happen with us?"

"You prompt me, once again, that you're seventeen years old," Snape said acridly.

"I don't see how—"

"My God, Potter!  Stop thinking with your hormones and start thinking with your head!  Do you think that every relationship starts with a wild night of mad, mad passion?  Do you think that I am going to be fool enough not to see through you?"

"You—" Harry gaped at him.

"I am not seventeen, Potter.  Stop thinking that I am.  I have been through so much more than you have . . . and don't give me that I-defeated-utter-darkness crap!  Let me tell you this, Potter.  First of all, I am still your professor.  As lovely as it sounds, I am not going to risk losing my job, and probably my liberty, to aid in your impetuousness.  If we initiate some semblance of a relationship now, do you think that people are not going to find out?  Who do you think is going to be blamed when they do?  You, the shining model of wizarding greatness?  I think not!

"Yes, Potter, I am selfish.  You should know that by now.  And yes, Potter, I think too much.  But it's true.  If you halfway even decently care about my circumstances and my values, kindly never bring this up again."

Harry found his voice.  "So I should never come back again."

Snape didn't say anything.  The paring knife had stopped.  "Whether you come back or not is your decision."

Harry nodded.

He didn't know what to do.  One thing that Snape made perfectly clear that night, and that's that they will have nothing close to a relationship before this year was done. 

How typical of him, Harry thought bitterly.  To put his occupation before this . . .

Harry threw himself on his bed, hugging a pillow.  The pent-up sexual frustration was too much for him.  He had been celibate for a full three months—his last "relationship" had broke off two weeks before the first fair—and knowing that he's not going to have Snape anytime soon was infuriatingly obvious.

Think more with your head than with your hormones?  Professor, you're the one to talk!  You should start thinking more with your heart than with your head!

The next day, Harry's head pounded.  He wouldn't have Potions for a while, so he'd have time to think.  Unfortunately, it didn't come so easily.  As soon as he thought about Snape, anger flared up within him.

"You're with him, aren't you?"

Harry's head snapped up.  "Huh?  What?"

Hermione peered at him, and then leaned back with an enigmatic smile on her face.  "I knew it."

"How—what—I'm not!" Harry sputtered.

"Oh, stop offending my intelligence," Hermione said.  "It's so obvious."

Harry coloured.  "How did you know?"

"Harry, you haven't been all right since that day when you found out . . . and then all of the sudden you start studying like crazy?  You become first in our Potions class?  Come on, Harry.  I knew that there was something going on, but I didn't realize that it was mutual until you started sneaking down every night.  Speaking of which, that is against school rules."

"For what?" Harry wondered.

Hermione cast a glance around the library.  It was almost empty.  Nevertheless, she muttered a quick spell around their table.  "Fraternizing with a teacher.  Harry, you're putting him in danger."

All of the sudden, something struck him at the bottom of his gut.  The realization hurt like hell.  Harry swallowed.

"Harry, are you okay?"

Harry nodded, ever so slightly as he collected his marbles.  One step at a time, he thought.  "Hermione, first of all, I wasn't lying to you when I said I'm not with him.  It's true.  It's not that I don't want to be.  He—he wouldn't let it happen."

Hermione's mouth opened.  "Oh," she uttered.

"Yes.  Oh.  And I—I don't—I didn't think that it was right of him to say so—but now—"

"Oh, Harry," Hermione sighed.  "How could you not realize it?  How could you think that he'd give up so much?  Who did you think he was?  He's Snape, for Merlin's sake.  Just because there's attraction between the two of you doesn't make him any less than he is."

"I just thought . . ." Harry said, and then he stopped.  "Oh, goddamn it, he was right.  Again."

"What?"

"'Stop pretending I'm seventeen,'" Harry quoted.  "That's what he told me.  I was too mad at him at the time to think about it, but now . . ."

"He's a grown man, Harry.  He has his responsibilities and his past.  There's so much about him that you probably don't know.  You can't expect this to be like any other fling," Hermione said.

"I didn't!  But can't he at least acknowledge that there's something?"

"I've said this before, and I'll say it again.  He's Snape," Hermione said shortly.

~*~*~

"I can't wait until it's tomorrow!" Ron proclaimed.  "Hogsmeade, here I come!"

"Oh, Ron," said Harry absently.

"C'mon, Gloomy," Ron said.  "You've been so moody lately.  Maybe a coupla Butterbeers might cheer you up, old mate."

Harry smiled.  "Actually, Ron, I'm thinking about staying in Hogwarts."

"What?" Ron gasped.

"I have some work to do."

"You're skipping Hogsmeade?"  Harry wished that Ron's mouth would close.

"Yes."

"You're crazy!  There's gotta be some kind of a rule against that!  How could you, Harry?"

"I don't want to go."

"But Harry, it's Hogsmeade!  Hello?  Have you been kidnapped by a Death Eater?"  At Harry's admonishing glance, Ron closed his mouth and sighed.  "Sorry.  It's just so unlike you.  Ever since . . . Are you okay, Harry?"

"Yes, I'm fine.  I just . . . I don't feel like it, okay?"  Harry didn't mean to be so defensive, but he was tired to arguing.

Ron nodded.  By the look in his eyes, he was backing off.  All these years, he had learned when Harry needed his own time.

"Okay.  Then you want me to bring back something?"

"No, it's okay.  Thanks, though."

"No prob, Harry."

Harry lay on his bed that night.  He thought. 

After three hours, he slept.

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