Disclaimer: The characters belong to J.K. Rowling.

Pairing: Severus/Harry.

Rating: R

Summary: For as long as he lived Harry was never going to forget the sight of those black eyes in pain. The light hit Snape from the side and then it seemed to cover him as he turned in it to face the boy he had protected so many times before. And it looked like he was melting...

Author's note: Be warned...this is one of my pet projects so update may be erratic.

Author: Spirit

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The Cinderman's Kiss

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CHAPTER 4

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Harry woke up early the next day and made his way to his guest room.

He wanted to begin a steady routine in this early stage, especially since Snape was now in a state of complete paralysis, save for his abdomen and left arm. This would probably be them at their worst. Harry had searched every medical, magical and malicious text he could find. He had owled St. Mungo's in the middle of the night and was expecting a response soon. It wasn't as if the cure did not exist. Intabescopestis was an old curse and Healers had been treating it for longer than Harry had been alive. The only complication was time. Most people were treated as soon as the curse hit them. Snape had not been granted that privilege as from the sound of it, he would not have been easily accepted anywhere in the wizarding world long enough to gain the ingredients. At least, that was what Harry was willing to believe.

Before he got to worrying about curses and cures however, there were a few things that had to be taken care of. Harry had waited long enough. Now that Snape was fast recovering from his malnutrition and was able to remain conscious, a nice long bath was in order without the fear of the wizard slipping into unconsciousness and drowning. A real bath, where for once the bath water would be transparent instead of a murky grey colour. Although, truth be told Snape smelled a hell of a lot better than he did when Harry had first found him. But his hair and his nails could definitely do with a bit of pampering.

Harry planned to dedicate twenty-four hours to making Snape look and feel like a passable human being.

"Day three and we're both still sane. Good morning professor," he said softly as he entered the guest room and approached the still figure.

Automatically he leaned over to rest his head on Snape's chest, listening to the steady heartbeat beneath his ear and he sighed in relief at the gentle rise of the chest that he felt. He would have to turn Snape unto his back later to listen to his lungs without the distracting sound of heartbeats, but from what he could hear and feel, Snape's breathing seemed normal. There were no hitches in his breathing and Harry hoped that this wasn't the calm before a storm as he didn't want Snape to suddenly asphyxiate any time in the day.

But everything seemed okay.

Snape was wakening. Harry could feel the other wizard's consciousness reassert itself as sleep made way for waking. Harry may not have been able to see Snape's dreams but the sense he got was that the dreams were not the most comfortable. The aura that the dreams had, left Harry feeling as if there were sharp edges grazing his mind. He was glad when the feeling faded.

'Good morning Potter,' Snape said softly, not giving away whether he was responding to Harry's earlier comment or if he really had not heard.

Harry stepped away a little to peer down at him. For one brief second he got the urge to reach down and caress the side of Snape's face in a soothing gesture. But, he quickly quelled that desire as he was fairly certain that Snape would not look kindly upon him pawing at his face.

"How are you feeling today?" Harry asked instead.

'I am well,' Snape answered, which brought a smile to Harry's lips as the words flowed silkily through his mind.

"Good!"

Harry's smile became a grin as he pulled out his wand and a few tiny items from his pockets. With a wave of his wand he resized the various things. Soon after which he dumped the lot on Snape's lap.

"Want to sit up a bit?"

Snape did not respond so Harry took the silence to mean consent.

Harry slipped his arms beneath Snape's arms. He grunted loudly as he tugged the still figure upright and into his embrace. Snape wrapped his left arm around Harry's shoulder as his head fell forwards upon the other shoulder. It took a fair bit of maneuvoring but Harry managed to slip around Snape's lithe body -still keeping a firm grasp- to sit behind Snape on the bed. He finally pulled Snape up between his legs and propped up the wizard against his chest then draping one arm across the thin shoulders to allow Snape's chin a place to rest upon.

"Is this okay?" he finally asked softly. "I'm not choking you am I? That wouldn't be good if I am."

'No...I am...fine.'

"Alright then," Harry responded to that, softly.

He untangled the arm that he had holding Snape around the waist, to tuck away limp hair behind the shell of the wrinkled right ear. He shifted Snape a bit so that he could rest his head on Snape's shoulder in order to see the items that lay strewn on the sheet that covered them.

Then he spent a moment trying not to dwell on the fact that by God it felt good to hold this man in his arms in this way.

"So which would you prefer..." He grabbed two of the bottles and held them up so that Snape could read the labels that he had put on them. "The laxative. Or, this nasty tasting concoction of Daryll's that will have you puking up your guts and everything in it from just one sip. And believe me it works. The bugger tricked me into drinking it once. I was sick for hours. I still owe him for that little present actually."

He dropped the bottles when he felt something weak but discernable brush through his thoughts. It felt a bit like sadness and embarrassment. Harry clamped down on it, knowing instinctively that Snape wouldn't like that his magic was so strong that he was hearing more than just the other wizard's voluntary thought-speech.

"After which we have these." He grabbed one bottle and then another in a jerky movement that was the only indication of his discomfort in what he was feeling from the man in his embrace. "Shampoo. Conditioner. There is a...uh...comb...here somewhere. We'll have to comb your hair first before we wash it."

The emotions intensified suddenly, so much that it wasn't just light flickers he was feeling now. It was instead a ball of emotions that swirled confusingly but so strong that they were painful to Harry to feel as they brushed by. Snape's left arm that had been resting carelessly on the bed, tensed enough that his fingers curled into a slow fist around the blanket.

Yet, Snape's voice in Harry's head was just as soft as always.

'Purgatives for internal parasites and sanitizers for my external ones. Should I take the hint and assume that my current state offends you?'

There was a thick blanket of silence between them before Harry found the words he needed to speak again.

"Sorry," he finally whispered, dropping the hair products on the box marking the antibacterial soap. "We don't have to do this. I just thought that it might help."

This time there was a tiny thread of shame projected almost imperceptibly from the wizard in his grasp, before Snape's thought and feelings went completely silent. Harry almost gasped aloud at the suddenly coldness that his mind was subjected to. It was a feeling he had only just experienced that one time before, and he didn't like it any more now than he did then.

"Don't shut me out," he whispered softly, so desperate that he said the thought that rose to his lips. "I didn't mean to make you feel bad or dirty. I don't care. Really, I don't."

And in the silence that he followed, Harry wondered when Severus Snape had been elevated from an evil wizard who deserved what he got, to a man worthy of his rambled desires.

'It has been too long since I was worthy of kindness,' came the very, very soft response.

Harry felt something inside of him ache at the words. How many times had he felt unworthy of kindness and had been shown it? With Hagrid who had rescued him? With Remus who had guided him? Sirius who had loved him? Dumbledore who had protected him? Ron? Hermione? All these people in his life he always had no matter what he ever did and although some had died they had died with his love and devotion. But Snape had been alone, maybe for longer than even the four years he had spent shunned from the only world he had known.

"For what you did and the things you sacrificed for me and this world, you deserve more than kindness Professor," Harry said quietly in the shell of a damaged ear, against a marred and discoloured cheek. "I owe you my life, but since I cannot give you that then I will give you your life back in payment and I can't do that until I fix you a little at a time."

'Fix me...' The words faded slowly as if they were a combination of Snape's thoughts and wishes. 'Perhaps I am too broken to be fixed and too damaged to be healed.'

Harry's free arm snaked around Snape's waist as it had originally. He didn't leave himself time to ponder on what the older wizard would think about being held so intimately by one who probably up until the minute Harry had rescued him off the streets, had thought of Harry as only a student and a nuisance and a brat.

He wanted to hold him though, and maybe lend his strength. No one deserved to think himself beyond hope or redemption. Not even an ex-Death Eater or an ex-murderer like Snape.

"Then who better to mend you Professor, than the boy whose life you saved?" Harry asked, not really expecting a response but knowing he would not be given the last word with this wizard.

'No. No longer a child, Potter. You are grown up now. Finally.'

Harry wondered if there was a smile hidden in the words he was hearing, but he couldn't see Snape's face to tell and the words flowed too neutral in his mind to decifer. They made him smile however, and blush. He tried to hide his pleasure by reaching for the bottles on the bed again.

But somewhere in their conversation, they both knew that they had reached a understanding and perhaps after all their years of not liking or accepting each other, they had finally formed a truce that would last.

o

"Hello?"

"You wanker!"

Cradling the phone between his cheek and shoulder, Harry slipped out of the guest room as quietly as he could. Leaving the door only slightly open so that he would be aware should Snape need him, Harry sat with his back against the opposing wall with his knees tucked up near his chest. Finally he was able to properly hold the phone in his hand again.

"You haven't spent enough time in England to start yapping like a Brit you idiot," he growled into the phone but the grin on his face was no doubt being transferred along the phone line.

"Hey! I spent three years in England. I can talk like anyone I want."

Harry laughed. "Yes, three years and you learned nothing. You couldn't even twist your tongue to learn the bloody dialect and now that you're back in Canada you decide that you'll have a go at it?"

"Play nice, you prat," Daryll responded in an amazingly good fake British accent. "After two years I'm still the only ex-boyfriend you talk to. That can change."

"Now why is that?" Harry's voice softened as he smiled.

Daryll's voice did too as he spoke again. "Because I keep you sane and make you forget that to a good bit of the hidden population you're not just some average guy walking around England. You're the great Harry Potter and even Ron and Hermione forget to shove that point home once in a while."

"Yeah, thanks for that."

"Seriously though." Daryll's voice became a little more serious. "How is he?"

"Clean?"

"Harry."

Harry sighed, but he was smiling again. From the crack of the door he could just see Snape's still figure lying where he had left him on the bed. He was sleeping now because they had a long day. When Harry had thought up his brilliant plan of cleaning Snape up he had not remembered that doing things the Muggle way took that much longer than magic ever did. But there had only been so many things that wand waving covered and the rest had been done the old fashion way.

"What else do you want to hear? I spent the whole day watching him hurl in a bucket while I tried not to let him suffocate and then I washed him. Then we had a quiet moment where I brushed his hair until it shone and felt like heaven between my fingers. When we were finish I convinced him to take a nap because he looked pale and I didn't want him to wear himself out because you know his body is still recovering. So I'm listening to him sleep now. Which I might add, you almost woke him when you rang."

"And that's why you haven't called me all day to give me a progress report?"

"Yes." Harry nodded even though he knew that Daryll wouldn't see. "That's why I didn't call. I was busy."

"Well that's good then."

Harry made a snorting sound. "It's good that I forcefully made him sick all day and then I watched him vomit wreathing, crawling things that doesn't belong inside someone before convincing little bugs to give up their home on his scalp? It's good that I took this wizard who I have always seen as proud and unbreakable and stubborn as shit to sit in my arms embarrassed as hell and so ashamed that I could feel his disgust about himself seeping from him like waves in my mind?"

The silence that came after that was abrupt, as if Harry had snapped the air in two when he finally stopped speaking long enough to calm down. He wondered briefly what Daryll was doing on his end of the line. Perhaps he was glaring at his phone in surprise. Harry wondered if he should start grovelling immediately for the angry tone he had used.

"I love that you do this," Daryll said gently, erasing all of Harry's fears that an apology was expected. "You know I didn't mean that it's good that you got revenge or whatever. Just that you're connecting with him and you're making him respect you. And it really is nice that you're not letting your past dictate how you treat him. From what I know about him he isn't the most loved wizard and you weren't exactly his favourite pupil. And I really do love that you let yourself care, even when the person you're caring for treated you like sewage for six years of your life."

"Didn't mean to snap, mate," Harry murmured. "Just a bit scared. I got the report I asked about from St. Mungo's and can I just say that the cure for this thing is no small order. There are ingredients in it that I have never heard about in my grown life and with my past that's bloody impressive. And I'll have to scrap half of it anyway because of the time delay from the curse. I might even have to break it into stages and have maybe three or four different potions instead of one. You know I'm rubbish at Potions. I'm going to make an arse of myself trying to impress a Potions Master by making from scratch the potion he needs to save his life."

"Good thing I'm not there then." Daryll was grinning again. Harry could just hear the mischief in the other man's voice. "It would probably not go over too well if you had me there laughing at you every step of the way."

Harry growled something that wasn't very nice, but it only made Daryll laugh on his end of the line.

"And on that note, I'll leave you to your spells and disabled patient," Daryll said in a voice that could melt butter with it's false pleasantness. "I'll call you again tomorrow if I'm not too busy."

Harry smiled, loving the way he could have these insane conversations with such a good friend. "You do that, because you know I'll be too busy to even remember you exist and we wouldn't want you going through withdrawal from me too soon."

"Ass."

Harry chuckled. "I thought you loved my arse as much as I loved yours."

"Get off my phoneline Potter. I'm hanging up on you now."

Harry laughed again as the connection went dead in his hand and all he was left with was the dull buzz of the dial tone and the feeling that after the tiring day he had, it was nice to relax a little.

o

"Harry Potter, sir? Dobby is leaving now."

Considering that Harry hadn't even known that Dobby was there -something which Harry had a suspicion that Dobby had realized and seemed damn proud about- he could only manage a very distracted and confused sounding response.

"Oh...okay."

"Dobby will return again soon." The house-elf gave an impressive bow with the top of his tea-cozy sweeping the floor. "Is Harry Potter wanting anything at Hogwarts, sir?"

Harry shook his head, smiling at the smiling elf at his feet.

Sitting at Snape's bedside, Harry had been previously lost in thought as he watched the slight rise and fall of the hollowed looking abdomen. Snape was breathing on his own. Still. It was baffling but neither of them had mentioned it all day. Secretly Harry was keeping his fingers crossed and hoping that it meant that the inner muscles of Snape's neck had remained unaffected. Before Snape had been convinced to go to sleep Harry had tried to get him to drink something, but the drink had gone in and dribbled out. He just could not swallow. Sooner or later he was going to have to either invent a spell or run a feeding tube to Snape's stomach to figure out another way of getting food in.

Which was exactly why he had been so lost in time when Dobby popped into the room.

"You should probably just get back before McGonagall thinks I'm starting my own little house-elf revolution. Hermione would love that. McGonagall...not so much."

Dobby nodded enthusiastically. "Dobby can leave for now. Harry Potter is not alone any longer."

That got Harry's attention. He gave the house-elf a mingled look of surprise and curiosity. Dobby had been there when he had just gotten the house a few months after killing Voldemort. Afterall the house-elf had been adamant that should Harry need anything he was always willing to help. At that time it had just been the two of them. But Dobby had also been there enough times to spy the overnight-friends each morning as they would leave. He had never mentioned them of course, but Harry just always assumed that Dobby must have come to the realization that Harry had 'friends' in abundance. Even if all that had been two years. But it wasn't as if he was missing out on having regular friends over, either.

He decided to let that issue go when he realized that Dobby had climbed onto the bed and was staring down at Snape with a look on his face that wasn't very pleasant.

"Nasty wizard," the house-elf muttered.

Harry immediately felt a stream of indignation rise within him at the words. Without thinking, he allowed his anger to show as words of defence rose to his lips. "Dobby, he is my patient. I know that you recognize him but I won't have you saying that in my house. You'll respect him and treat him -"

But before he could finish, Dobby had hopped off the bed again and he proceeded to kiss the toes of Harry's socked feet. When Harry pulled his feet away in surprise, Dobby took a flying leap towards one cornered edge of the bed, no doubt intending to give his head a solid pounding. Harry just barely caught him in time.

"Dobby didn't mean this wizard Harry Potter!" the house-elf wailed. "Dobby doesn't listen to his own words. Stupid Dobby! Stupid Dobby! Dobby meant the other wizard who Harry Potter killed. He is the nasty wizard using nasty curses."

Harry suddenly realized what Dobby was saying and he immediately felt his cheeks redden with shame.

"I'm sorry Dobby. Of course you wouldn't be saying something bad about Snape in front of me." He tried to pat Dobby's head awkwardly but it only seemed to result in the house-elf bumping his head repeatedly on Harry's knees.

Not that Dobby seemed to mind as he was quickly beaming from ear to ear. "No need to say sorry, Harry Potter. Not to Dobby."

And Harry smiled back. The two of them had really formed a weird little friendship filled with blind devotion on Dobby's part and exasperating moments where Harry was always in need of quick reflexes. But Dobby had been with him in one way or another for all these years, and he couldn't help thinking that maybe he owed the little house-elf a lot more than Dobby owed him, by now.

"Why is he still breathing Dobby?" Harry asked softly as both their gazes fell on the sleeping wizard on the bed. "He can't eat but he can breathe. I'm grateful that it's not the other way around but he'll become malnourished again soon if I can't feed him. If I can figure out how he's still breathing then I can use that to think of a way to get him to swallow."

"Perhaps Harry Potter should get help now," Dobby said giving Harry a strangely intense look. "If Harry Potter cannot fix the professor for now. Harry Potter should ask for help."

Harry considered that. He was taking the discussion very seriously as he often found himself doing with the house-elf sometimes. And so of course the option remained open that Harry didn't have to do everything on his own. Maybe the other healers at St. Mungo's had a temporary remedy. Maybe he should try wrestling a serious discussion with Daryll again.

"Thanks Dobby. It does make sense to bring some other more experienced healers in to see him." Harry gave a brief nod of approval.

Dobby seemed to light up like a christmas tree but all he said wisely was, "Dobby has to go now Harry Potter."

And that left Harry lost in thought again as he stared at Snape's still figure on the bed.

oXo