A Season for Healing
By Dien
Summary and disclaimer in part one.
Rating: The series overall has an adult rating due to the Severus/Harry plotline... This part is PG-13 or R for language or something.
Notes: The Waste Land and Other Poems is by T.S. Eliot. I recommend it most highly. As if Eliot needs my recommendations, being the greatest poet of the bloody century....
Severus is obviously a cosmopolitan (yet discerning) reader, digesting things by Muggle and magical authors both.
Continual thanks to lovely beta Nyarth. Everyone: GO READ HER STUFF! She's in my Favorite Authors. Go! Go! *but finish this first*
Chapter Nine. In which Harry-- oh my GOD-- uses a library of his own volition.
Severus hummed under his breath and gave the smoking violet liquid another careful stir with the bronze ladle. Time to take another sample. He grabbed another of the distinctive bottles, scooped the necessary amount of liquid into it, and sealed it.
Then he placed a heavy iron lid on top of the brewing cauldron, so it could bubble away happily to itself. He turned and stripped off his dragonhide work gloves, tossing them onto the central counter.
Finally, he allowed himself to plop onto one of the stools and lay his head down on the cool stone of the counter. It felt heavenly. The soft background noises of the simmering mixture barely intruded into his mind. The stone under his cheek was a refreshing contrast to the warmth of the rest of the room. Heavy, clinging warmth, that seeped into one's bones and made one want to stretch like a cat, then curl up in an armchair and... just... close... one's eyes...
Severus jerked upright on the stool, his hands knocking a stack of notes to the floor, as the sound of the library's solid door closing heavily overhead woke him from the half-doze he had been indulging in. The requisite swearing as he snatched and grabbed at the parchments was rather satisfying. He shoved the untidy pile of paper under a cast-iron thermometer that made a good paper-weight, then stalked towards the stairs.
As he'd thought. It was Potter in the library, looking around hesitantly at the shelves. The boy's back was to him, that unruly mop of black hair even messier than usual. Probably from all that flying. Severus grimaced a bit more at that thought, remembering how long and how much effort it had taken to alter the wards-- just so Harry bloody Potter could fly around yelling "Death to Slytherins."
Snape was in a reasonably perverse mood, and found himself walking silently over the library floor to stand behind Potter as the boy scanned the shelves. "Looking for something, Potter?" he said sharply, and had the delight of watching the boy jump a good six inches in the air.
"Professor Snape!" his sometime-student wheezed as he turned around, trying to back up a step and hitting the shelf immediately behind him.
Severus sneered. "An astute observation. What are you looking for, Potter?"
"Um... uh..."
Snape rolled his eyes. Damn the boy. Couldn't he answer a simple question? "Kindly spit it out. I'm not in the mood to listen to you stutter."
Potter flushed angrily and then said firmly, "I was looking for some books on Transfiguration. I'm trying to do make-up study for my test."
"Actually applying yourself to your schoolwork, without Granger here to force you? Why, Mr. Potter, I am impressed," he drawled, letting the sarcasm carry him. Being rude to Harry Potter felt like something overdue. Before the boy had a chance to answer, he turned on his heel and walked to the central table, on which a few books and random papers were scattered about.
One of the volumes which lay on the table's surface was a good five inches thick, bound in a richly-tooled leather cover, and positively exhaled dust and age. He hefted it with one hand and turned to show it to Potter.
"This," he sighed, "is the Catalogue. No matter where you leave it, it will always find its way back to this table. It is an alphabetical listing of every book in the library, updated instantly by magic. For instance, if you were to bring a copy of your fascinatingly highbrow Quidditch Through the Ages inside with you, it would automatically be listed in the Catalogue, and disappear from the listing when you took it out of the tower."
He opened the book to a random page and thrust it under Potter's nose, pointing to an entry as he did so. "It lists the book name, the author, the subject the book deals with, and the section of the library it is located in. This volume is Tangrams and Tortoises: A Dialogue on the Divinations of Fu Hsi, written by Kun Lo, dealing with 'eastern magics, divination, tangrams,' etc, etc, and it can be found on shelf 82."
Snape gestured vaguely to a shelf about half-way up the tower as he spoke, then pointed towards the carpets by the table. "You will not be using those to access the books. To be blunt, I do not trust you with the family carpets. Instead, you will either use the staircases and thus get exercise, or make use of the opportunity to hone your skill with the Accio charm.
"Finally, the Catalogue is searchable by subject, or indeed any of the search terms. Simply rest your hand on the closed cover, state what you are looking for in a clear voice, then open the book. The search will be wiped if you close the Catalogue again, however, and you will have to start again."
Severus dropped the weighty volume into Potter's hands, smiled in what even he had to admit was a bit nasty fashion, and said, "Enjoy."
The boy had absorbed it all without speaking, though he had blinked once or twice and now stared uncertainly down at the book. "Um... right. Thank you. I think."
Snape snorted and turned without answering, preparing to head back down to the workshop... but suddenly felt reluctant to enter back into that hot, heavy atmosphere. He realized he was at the point where he needed a substantial break from work to keep from getting burnt out. Ideally, this was where he would find one of the many chairs scattered throughout the library, take up a favourite book, and enjoy a break... but damned Potter was in the tower with him.
For a second he wavered, then snarled inwardly. He was not going to let the boy drive him from his own library. Severus headed towards the foot of one of the staircases, summoned his well-worn copy of The Waste Land, and began to climb to the very top of the tower.
As he headed up the stairs towards the glass-enclosed top level, he heard Potter addressing the Catalogue behind him and sighed.
Just as long as the brat was quiet.
Harry thumbed through the extensive volume slowly. He hadn't even known there were this many books on Transfiguration. Way, way, way too many. He had no idea where to start.
And what was he supposed to make of Severus Snape, sometime bastard? He frowned down at the book pages, shaking his head slightly. The man was... really... annoying.
For six years of being taught by the professor, it had been all too easy to sum him up with simple adjectives: greasy, sarcastic, miserable, jealous, petty, shallow, spiteful, biased. 'Human' hadn't been one of them. Even when he had known Snape was a member of Dumbledore's trusted inner circle, the Order of the Phoenix, and that his professor was risking his life to spy for their side, it had still been so easy to dismiss him for what he "knew" the man to be.
Funny how a day and a half could totally throw you. A day and a half in which you learned... all sorts of things. That Snape had a sister. That Snape had had what sounded like an arsehole for a father. That Snape was a human who maybe actually had a life, under all that sarcasm.
(Oh, and that Snape was queer. Harry had been mulling over that in the hour since his conversation with Casimir, and still wasn't sure how he felt about it, if indeed he should feel anything about it.)
But you could learn more than enough to make you wonder, suddenly, if maybe you'd made a mistake. Maybe you'd judged too quickly. Maybe...
And then the man went and acted like that, and you realized, no, you had not made a mistake. The man was a bastard, plain and simple.
Harry stared up towards the landing Snape had disappeared over the top of, though all he could see was the underside of the landing at the moment. For a minute, he wondered what would happen if he went up and joined the man there, taking his homework with him.
The possibility of getting hexed was strong, and he decided to do his work on the ground floor.
Right then. Time to decide on some of these books and get to work. Snape didn't think he could study without Hermione helping him? They'd just see about that.
He summoned several of the books by title, smiling in spite of himself as they zipped from their places on the shelves into his waiting hands, to be stacked neatly on the table. If there was one charm he considered himself good at, it was Accio-- it had only saved his life during the Tri-Wizard Tournament, after all. So much for needing to practise it.
From his jeans pocket, he pulled the piece of parchment he'd written down his questions on: things he hadn't understood from his own textbook and wanted to see if Snape's library had held any answers to. He turned to the first of the piled books (Rocks to Ravens: The Inanimate to the Animate, by Foronius Farthing) and steeled his iron determination and Gryffindor courage.
Time to get to work.
...These fragments I have shored against my ruins
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo's mad againe.
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
Shantih shantih shantih...
Severus slowly re-read the last lines of the poem in his mind, his lips moving silently as his eyes traced them on the page. Datta, dayadhvam, damyata. Give, sympathize, control. Peace. Peace. Peace.
His hands closed the book carefully, running over yellowed pages and a tattered paperback cover. This was not one of the volumes covered in rich leather and bound in protective spells that filled the library, but rather a cheap Muggle paperback he had bought in London at the age of fifteen, hardly thinking about it at the time.
Since then it had become one of his favourite books, as its somewhat shabby condition testified. The pages were filled with notes, scrawls, and thoughts in his 'work' handwriting. A reading through of it was nearly always guaranteed to still him, no matter what dark issues and thoughts roiled under the surface.
Now, one poem was enough that he leaned his head back and gazed out at the world through lazily slitted eyes. The eight glass window-walls that surrounded him provided an unobstructed view of late-afternoon sun illuminating the stone of his home, of the towers and battlements and ramparts. He let the feel of the castle seep into him, his eyes drifting shut as he extended his consciousness.
A rich, deep silence-that-was-more-than-silence crept into his bones, the aura of the castle's magics. Strength, power, haven, welcome, home, the stones said. A low bass throbbing, at the edge of perception. Sunlight danced in quick flickers over the stones of the walls and towers, warming and caressing. God. It was so peaceful...
Wait one bloody moment. Where was Potter?
He scowled and instantly moved out of the leather-upholstered chair to the edge of the landing, peering over. If that boy was out of the castle and engaged in some mischief--
No, there he was on the ground floor, bent quietly and studiously over his books. Actually working. Silently, industriously, diligently applying himself.
Wonders never ceased.
Curious in spite of himself, Severus slowly descended the stairs, taking care to be noiseless. The sight of a Potter truly working at the gathering of knowledge was a memory he wanted to keep for a rainy day.
He made it all the way down without Potter's messy head (someone really ought to stick a Flattening Charm on that tangle, he thought grimly) ever once looking up from his work. Severus moved with a stealth developed by eleven years of teaching (and sneaking up on students) to stand a little off to one side, where he could observe the boy.
Potter was intently poring over the tiny text in a thick volume on Transfiguration, his dark brows drawn together in concentration over his vivid green eyes. Lily's eyes, with her ridiculously long lashes also carried over, he noted absently. The boy was chewing on his lower lip in thought, another gesture he must have inherited from his mother.
As Severus watched, the boy exhaled in frustration and reached for one of the other books, looking back and forth between the two as if trying to confirm something. Then he took up his quill and started to write quick notes on his parchment, stopped, checked one of the books again, stopped and chewed on his lower lip some more. A moment's hesitation, then looking something up in yet another of the books, hunting through the pages with the same dedication he showed looking for a bloody Snitch.
He found himself staring. Surely this... this was not... The boy had grown up, somehow. This was no first year, all of eleven years old and filled with unconscious self-righteousness and hypocrisy, glaring at him and already judging. Accusing for a whole bloody year, a year in which he'd been risking his own neck to keep the damned little ingrate safe-- for what thanks?
Certainly not for gratitude, not from this snotty child. A clone of Saint James. A perfect child, beyond reproach, his every infraction written off as boyish high spirits, mischief. A fucking Gryffindor, for whom the world revolved and the sun shone and consequences were discarded.
The plague of his gods-damned existence as a teacher-- determined to throw himself bodily into every intrigue, every hint of danger-- and devil take any attempts by his teachers to pound in caution or discretion. He was Harry Potter, thank you very much, he didn't need any help. After all, he had a bloody Invisibility Cloak and a broomstick and Merlin knew what kind of luck-- and he trusted to it, like some sort of moron. Trusted to it enough to throw himself time after time straight into the jaws of the snake.
Such a stupid, selfish child.
And not present here. Not here, not now. This boy... this young man, so focused, so determined, but without the stubbornness and pettiness.... for once, he was looking at a Harry Potter perhaps worthy of the praise he constantly received.
"You know, Potter, if you showed half this effort in Potions class, your marks might not be so utterly abysmal," he said finally, tearing his eyes from that intent face.
Potter started violently, whirling clumsily around to try and see him, and Severus internally shook his head disapprovingly.
A year now of lessons with Remus Lupin in 'combating the Dark Arts' and this was the state of Potter's reflexes and training. It would be laughable if so much didn't depend on it.
He won't last thirty seconds in a true combat situation, Severus mused idly. Well, it isn't my problem, is it? Albus doesn't want me teaching Defence. Sirius Fucking Black doesn't want me teaching his godson. Harry Potter doesn't want more lessons spent with his most hated teacher.
And I don't want to teach him.
So there.
Hunh. Okay, so you couldn't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear-- unless you followed the seventeen rules regarding organic material to organic-based material, and fabric, and--
"You know, Potter, if you showed half this effort in Potions class, your marks might not be so utterly abysmal."
Harry nearly yelped, startled out of his intense concentration, and whirled to see his professor giving him Look Number Two (The Special-Venom-Reserved-for-Harry-Potter Look).
How the hell does he do that? Harry fumed inwardly, thinking of the man's sinister ability to creep up noiselessly on unsuspecting, innocent children. Like Harry himself.
Snape was glaring at him with the expression all too familiar from Potions class, and Harry felt the usual angry defensiveness rise up. He squelched it. He was not going to give Snape the satisfaction.
He really wasn't.
"I haven't yet failed a Potions class though, sir," he retorted cheerfully, then mentally slapped himself for stupidity. If they had been at school, this was the point where his professor would take off ten points for impudence.
Snape couldn't take points off during summer vacation, could he?
For one moment, Snape's eyes had widened at his insolent little comeback. Now they narrowed, and the Sneer kicked in.
"Thanks only, I'm sure, to the interference of Miss Granger. Give me an excuse and I'd be only too happy to rectify your barely passing marks, Potter."
I must have a death wish, Harry thought to himself, before saying, "You don't ever need excuses to take points off my house, so why bother to find an excuse to fail me?"
For a second, the professor gaped slightly. Harry exulted inwardly. I just scored! Against Snape! Oh, he's going to kill me.
Snape tilted his head to one side, an eyebrow arched speculatively, then said in a dangerously soft voice, "You know, Potter, one of these days that tongue of yours is going to get you into... serious... trouble."
"Oh, I believe you, Professor," Harry said brightly. "But until then, can you let me get back to studying? I don't think Professor McGonagall will let me use 'Professor Snape ate my homework' as an excuse for not having this essay done."
Some part of Harry was wondering just how far he could push Snape. The rest of him was screaming 'stop being such a suicidal idiot!'
His professor did not gape this time. Instead, he merely stared at Harry for a long second, then smiled tightly. Harry felt a chill attack his spine with incredible ferocity.
"Well, I certainly don't want to distract you from your studies, Potter," Snape said in a voice of silky smoothness. "Pardon me," he added politely as he grabbed the Catalogue from next to Harry's elbow. Without another word, he moved to the one of the shelves with it, searching for some book or another.
Harry sat stunned for a minute. Surely he wasn't going to get off that easy?
He wasn't. Snape found some books and moved to the table, directly across from Harry. He set his books down, then pulled out a chair and sat it in it-- making far more noise than Harry knew was necessary, especially for the stealthy, sneaky Potions Master. Then, Snape picked the first book off of his pile (a glance at the spine revealed it was Mortimer Remitrom's Guide to Palindromical Magick), and began to read.
Harry was aware he was staring. Snape. Voluntarily sitting at the same table with him?? He continued staring, as Snape unconcernedly read through the whole first page of Palindromical Magick, then noisily turned to the next page and continued.
The fingers of Snape's free hand were drumming loudly on the table top. Drum drum drum. The chair Snape was leaning back in was especially creaky. The book, as Snape shifted it on the table's surface, seemed to rasp and groan. Even Snape's breathing seemed unusually noisy.
Harry stared until Snape reached the third page of his book, slow realization and anger growing in his mind. Finally, Snape paused in his reading and looked up. And did the Eyebrow Arch.
"Don't mind me, Potter. ...I'm not disturbing your studies, am I? Tell me if I am. I'd hate to inconvenience you," Snape drawled. Harry gritted his teeth to bite back something that really would have gotten him in trouble.
"No, Professor, not at all. But it was kind of you to ask," he ground out with a smile. Snape smirked, and returned his gaze to his book. Harry fumed for a moment, then clenched his jaw in determination and also looked back at his own book. He took up his quill and started to write on the parchment by his side.
The first of the rules regarding inorganic to organic transfiguration concerns--
A noisy barking cough disrupted his train of thought, and he paused in his writing, not needing to look up at Snape to see the man's smirk. He took a deep breath, then continued writing.
...concerns the basic nature of living and non-living matter, and how the components of--
Snape moved his chair back a few inches from the table, and the screech of the wooden legs across the stone floor nearly made Harry drop his quill. He refused to look up.
...of each must be fully understood in order to effect a--
Snape's fingers were still drumming on the table. Harry thought he'd like to break them. Drop one of those nice heavy thick volumes right on them.
...to effect a proper transfiguration. As stated by Foronius Farthing in his--
The professor shut his book loudly, set it down on the table none too gently, and selected another from his stack. Harry paused in his writing, glaring from under his eyelashes as Snape opened the particular old and musty volume, then made a great show of coughing at the dust and waving it away. Harry's lips thinned and he bent his head back to his essay.
...his treatise, Rocks to Ravens so help me God I'm going to kill him--
Harry forced himself to take a deep breath. This wasn't working. He was going to have to humble himself and admit defeat. He steeled himself to deal with Snape's arrogance, then looked up with a polite smile plastered on his face.
"Professor Snape."
The Eyebrow Arch again. Damn that man. "Yesss, Potter?" Snape said with exaggerated courtesy.
"I'm sorry, but you are actually making a bit of noise. If you like, I can go study on one of the other landings--"
"Oh no, I wouldn't dream of forcing you to move. I'm terribly sorry, I had no idea I was being so loud," Snape said with a smile that was somehow malicious and apologetic at the same time. "I'll be much more quiet from now on."
Harry forced himself to keep up the polite smile. "Thank you, sir."
"Not at all, Potter."
Harry gritted his teeth again and returned to his essay.
Snape was as good as his word. He continued his own reading, completely and totally silent. Harry wasn't sure the man was even breathing. It didn't matter, because overall, he would have preferred the noise to what the man was doing now.
Staring. Constantly. Fixedly. Intently. At him. But every time he looked up to catch the man doing it, Snape had already returned his gaze to his own books. He never actually saw Snape doing it. But he knew it was happening all the same. He could feel those black eyes boring into the top of his skull, just waiting for him to make a mistake...
He found himself misspelling words three times as frequently as before. Each time he had to use his wand to erase a mistake, he swore his professor was silently laughing at him. He constantly lost his place and had to look back in the books to regain his train of thought.
Harry started to sweat and fidget. As only happens when you are under intense scrutiny, all the unreachable places began to itch, terribly. An itch started on his rear end. An itch started on that one place halfway down the back. An itch started on the top of his head, where Snape's basilisk gaze was fixed. An itch started on the inside of his nose.
And with the man watching him, he was not going to scratch. He continued to slave over the essay, seething at Snape. This was ridiculous. No other professor would pull this sort of shit. Not one of them. Only Snape. How petty could you get?
About as petty as saying 'Snape ate my homework,' his subconscious retorted. He swatted it forcefully.
Ack. He'd just written 'Snape ate my homework' on his paper. Twice. Oh, hell. This was impossible.
He sighed in utter defeat and leaned back in his chair, slamming his own book shut forcefully in what he knew was a little pettiness on his own part. Snape, the bastard, didn't even twitch. Harry rolled his eyes and stood, starting to put the books he'd gotten back in their slots.
"The elves can see to that, Potter," drawled Snape. "Done already?"
"Yes sir," he ground out, dropping the remaining books into a pile on one of the chairs. He turned back to the table to see... Snape sliding the parchment across the table to look at it. The professor's black eyes flickered up to meet his, wicked amusement dancing in their depths. "Surely you won't mind if I take a look?"
There wasn't much he could say to that, and Snape didn't wait for an answer before perusing the scant three inches of text he had managed to get down before giving up-- the three inches that ended with 'Snape ate my homework.' Twice.
Harry stood there and silently cursed as his professor read the 'essay' with a sardonic little smile on his lips. Harry felt like cursing it off. Damn the man. He watched as the dark eyes scanned the parchment once, then a second time, lingering on the bottom. Finally, he handed the paper back with a languid, indolent gesture. Harry took it quickly, sure his cheeks were burning red.
Snape leaned back in his chair, regarding Harry through half-closed, amused eyes. "I see you still managed to bring in the 'Snape ate my homework' excuse," he purred.
Harry cast about for a ready retort, but the best he could come up with was, "It's a rough draft, sir."
Snape's mouth twitched. "Indeed. Well, carry on, Potter. It's been inspiring to see your dedication to your studies."
The Boy Who Lived took a deep breath... then decided it wasn't worth it. There really was no reason to push his luck.
With one last forced smile for his still-smirking professor, he turned and left the tower.
