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 6
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'Clockwise Potter doesn't just mean wrist movement. Unless you intend to sprain your wrist from the strain, I would suggest that you stop being a lazy, incompetent idiot and use your arm.'
"I am using my damn arm!"
'If you were doing that then there would be a nice funnel shape in the middle. The potion should be moving as one with no waves. I should be able to see the bottom of the cauldron ever so often. Obviously you and I have different opinions on what a funnel looks like.'
Harry grabbed the huge wooden spoon out of the potion and slammed it down on the work table that he had set up close by. He only just managed to miss the instructions for the potion he was trying to make, while the other scrolls - neatly rolled up - merely bounced a little. Harry spun around to face the hovering contraption behind him that held the wizard who had spent the entire morning riling him.
"I can't do this if you stand there driving me mad Professor. I know you wish you were doing it and believe me I bloody wish you were doing it too but you're not and since we both know how god awful I am already, well there it's been said so bugger off would you!"
They eyed each other in silence. Harry was fairly vibrating with anger while Snape looked at him in cool detachment.
This was not the first time that they had found themselves at each other's throats. Snape, it seemed to Harry, just could not bear to know that there were potions brewing and him not being a part of the process. So while Harry poured over scrolls and scrolls of suggested potions and new blends, while he tried to curl his mind around the concept of making a combination of potions he had never even known would have the composite to combine, Snape had spent hours berating him. As he could see the potion in his mind and instinctively knew what results they should be obtaining, it made Harry mistakes so much more obvious and the more nervous or angry that Harry got was more potions he would mess up.
'If you stop now you will ruin the potion yet again.'
Harry glared. "Well I don't give a flying fu-"
"Hello? Anybody there?"
Daryll's shout from downstairs effectively cut off Harry's curse. He snapped his mouth shut, wrestling with his anger as he turned away. He grabbed the instructions and the spoon again, spending a moment to calm down lest his magic do something strange and the potion exploded over the two of them like one the night before had done.
"Daryll is here," Harry finally managed to say softly.
Behind him he heard the wheelchair land upon solid ground before it moved out into the recovery room and no doubt down the hallway. Harry waited until he could not hear it any more before he collapsed upon the single bench in the room, banging his forehead on the table repetitively but not enough to really hurt himself as much as he wanted.
When the potion began to emit thick billows of smoke, Harry waved his wand angrily at it to get rid of the burned mess. Then he grabbed everything else worth throwing and he threw them as hard as he could against the door. Leaving a mess of scroll, the wooden spoon and various plastic containers holding dried ingredients that somehow managed to not open on impact and simple rolled to various locations on the floor.
Gathering them all back up, Harry began to brew the muscle relaxant yet again.
o
"Hey you."
Harry was decanting the transparent blue gellatine-like potion in a glass flask when Daryll walked into the potions room. He placed the flask on the table carefully before taking a seat before it, running both sets of fingers through his black hair and making it stick up even more than it usually did.
"I'm so bad at this," Harry finally said by way of greeting. "He sits there wishing that he could be the one to brew them and I stand there wishing that he really could do it too. Every time I botch it up, he gets frustrated and I get mad at myself for getting him so worked up when he should be relaxing. Then we spend hours yelling at each other and I can't help thinking that sooner or later one of us is going to say something to make the other one hate him and I'll be back at Hogwarts in my mind with my worst teacher irritating the shit out of me or he'll be there regretting everything he ever did for me, the ungrateful brat he always saw me as."
"Harry he won't hate you and you're just feeling guilty and scared again." Daryll sat down beside Harry and pulled the other man's hands into his own to offer some sort of support. "We talked about you all day and Severus appreciates the time and effort you put into this. You don't think that he's not afraid that you'll wake up one day and think it's not worth it? God man, he's just waiting for you to kick him out too."
Harry lookd at the way his own peach colored skin contrasted with Daryll's golden brown as the other man gave his hand a small squeeze of assurance. Harry returned the squeeze, already feeling better than he had all day.
"You call him Severus now? And you spoke to him?" Harry raised an eybrow. "Explain."
"It's his name you know and since he wasn't my teacher I can't refer to him the way you do." Daryll laughed and retracted his hand when he realized that Harry had calmed down. "And as for talking, a laptop was all he needed. I didn't even have to show him how to use it."
Harry laughed before he reached out to trace the contour of the glass flask.
"By the way I feel bad," He said turning to smile at his friend. "Here I am acting like an arse and never actually asking how your life is going. How is your girlfriend doing and why isn't she your fiance by now?"
"It's not that easy," Daryll said making a exasperating face.
"You love her?"
Daryll nodded.
"And she loves you?"
Another nod followed.
"Then what's the complication? I'm not sure I see it."
"Oh you don't?" Daryll feigned shock.
Harry shrugged. "Nothing you can't explain."
"Well how do I tell her that I used to be into guys?" Daryll wiggled his eyebrows, making Harry laugh again. "And that I used to really like them being in me literally. How do I explain to her that I can't take her over to my mom's house because I'm shitscared that mom is going to suddenly wave her wand and stuff will come flying into the room. Or worse when I tell her that if she liked that piece of trick she shouldn't get her hopes up because I couldn't get a pin to move if I begged and pleaded with it from here to eternity? I'm not sure if I want to live out my own homegrown version of Bewitched and I'm not sure she'll be too impressed with me if she finds out about the gay thing."
"Bisexual," Harry corrected teasingly. "And if you want to marry her then it means that you chose her."
"But how do I make sure she knows that I am only interested in her even though I don't know what could happen in the future?" Daryll gave Harry a steady look. "Afterall, once upon a time I was in love with a man. What's to say that if that man decides that he is old enough and more experienced enough now to be able to love me back, then I wouldn't give up everything to be with him?"
Instead of backing down, Harry returned the look. "What if I did say that?"
And Daryll laughed. "Then I'd say you're missing what's right in front of you and it's not me. We made the right decision to be friends Harry. You know it and I know it. Maybe a part of me will still love you. That's something you're going to have to concede to me, but I don't think I can work up the kind of love you want. And Charlene and I fit. I mean we fit like puzzle pieces. I'd give the world for her to know that I'll always make her happy."
"Then marry her!" Harry rolled his eyes. "And stop acting like a bleeding idiot when you know you care about her. If she loves you then she won't care that you used to shag men or that your mum is a witch. I wish I had what you found. I'm just a little jealous you know."
"Seriously? You might be closer than you think."
"What the hell is that to mean?"
"Nothing. Let it go. You'll figure it out when you figure it out." Daryll grabbed the jar of potion to distract Harry. "And by the way, this looks pretty good."
"Piss, in a bottle, would look good to you Dare," Harry said using the nickname he had dubbed Daryll during their time together.
Daryll raised an eybrow. "It's not, is it?"
"Blue-green? It better not be." Harry laughed. "Though, with my skills in potions I'm not sure how much shock I could claim if it turned out to be. You're lucky that the doctors send over the medciation already bottled and labled and all you have to do is send it through his feeding tube. I spend hours brewing these potions, only to have him point out my many mistakes."
This time it was Daryll's turn to emit an exasperated sound. "Speaking of him, which you seem to always be, I have to go make sure that he's okay. You're fine by yourself now? I won't have to come in here and drag you from near the fire?"
"How is it that I didn't know you were such an unfeeling prat?"
"You knew." Daryll ruffled Harry's hair even further, before he made his way to the door. "I just distracted you when you remembered."
o
By the time Harry made it to the adjoining room Daryll was chatting animatedly into the cellphone mic curved near his ear, while already helping Snape back into his wheelchair. There was a silencing charm on both the potions and the recovery room to allow both parties the ability to concentrate in peace so Harry was never usually aware when Daryll was finished curling Snape's limbs through various excercises to prevent blood clotting and bed sores. Standing in the open doorway and watching the care and skills that Daryll exhuded when he gently lowered Snape into the seat and the efficiency he had in securing the broken body, Harry couldn't help the string of jealousy that he felt when he realized that unlike him, Daryll was made for the task of taking care of Snape and he did a far better job of it.
Daryll smiled when he had Snape settled before spreading a blanket over the robe covered legs to keep them warm. All the while his fluent French Creole spilled from his lips like some exotic variation on a well known theme. Harry knew that it meant that Daryll was speaking to his father, who for the next two years was the Haitian embassador to Burkina Faso. The fact that they rarely found time to speak to each other, made Harry reluctant to disturb his friend. But Daryll took one look over at where he was louging near the doorway and winked at him. The conversation ended with a laugh and soon Daryll ended the call.
"I will see you tomorrow Severus," he said with a smile before walking over to Harry and giving the unruly black hair another mad ruffling, laughing when Harry punched him. "You I will see tomorrow too. And get some sleep before I'll be forced to teach you meditation excercises."
When he left, Harry spent a moment listenning to the silence in the room. Sometimes he really hated the fact that Snape was still such a good occlumen as he rarely ever felt anything but blank hollowed space since four days before when they had experienced that moment of shared consciousness. Now there were no emotions spilling from the mind spell and when Snape chose to speak it was almost like white words against a black background. It was all so sterile and less personal than they had been sharing before.
Finally Harry turned away from the door that Daryll had disappeared behind, and instead faced the intense gaze of Snape's eyes. But before he could speak, Snape held up his hand in an indication for Harry to not say anything.
'Potter, there is nothing we can say to each other right now that has not been said before.' The words were not cold, but they were so stiffly portrayed that Harry was indeed reminded of the Severus Snape of Hogwarts. 'I don't need yet another appology from you, nor do I expect one. I must admit that there are worst things in the world to realize than the fact that I can still find it in me to be -'
"An egotistical prat who thinks that when it comes to potions you alone are any good at it?" Harry supplied.
It was a little surprising when Harry felt amusement slip past the cold barrier that Snape had set up between their minds instead of the anger he had been expecting. Harry fought back the urge to smile or give in to whatever the man was trying to do to him. Instead he held up the three vials of potions that he had been brewing. He sighed tiredly, knowing that this conversation was as good as a make-up as they were going to act out.
"I want these to work," he said quietly. "You might not believe this, but it's draining to fight with you. I always end up feeling about two inches tall and wishing that I'd just kept my mouth shut. You get the prize for the most hurtful insults and the best delivery, so I concede. The sooner I can get you better is the sooner you can go brew your own potions again without me and my incompetence muddling them up."
Snape hovered his hand above the metal disk and slowly the chair rose until he was just at that height he would be if he were standing. With one plastic tube attached to his nose -the feeding set hung on an IV pole, that was magically attached to the wheelchair, for mobility during the continuos feeding- and another between his lips, it should have been easy for Harry to ridicule the situation in his mind. But, Harry was growing to respect Snape in subtle ways and so when the mismatched eyes held his gaze he found himself feeling like he was eleven again and just seeing Snape from across the Great Hall of Hogwarts again.
"Want me to comb your hair?" he asked, mentally letting go of the hurt and self-doubts that he had been carrying around all day.
'I would like that.' Snape responded, and to Harry it wasn't as cold anymore to feel the words.
They retreated down the magically elongated hallway and back into the guest room with Harry leading and Snape following behind. While Snape waited, Harry went into the bathroom to gather everything he would need to give Snape his evening wash. As soon as the feeding tube had been inserted they both agreed that it was better not to use a cleansing spell, and since baths were now near impossible that only left sponge baths.
"Alright, ready?" Harry asked when he returned to the bedroom.
He left the bath necessities out of accident's way, then unbuckled Snape from his wheelchair. Taking care to set the IV stand near the bedside he reached out and grasped Snape firmly into his arms. He was getting better at moving him, Harry was proud to realize. He even managed not to turn every shade of red he usually did whenever he had Snape naked before him and the only thing separating his fingers from exploring the broad expanse of skin at his disposal was a soapy sponge and some water.
Nevertheless, he was extremely relieved when he had the man dressed and everything was dry again. He accio-ed the hairbrush from the bathroom and slipped in behind Snape on the bed, as he acted like a backboard against which Snape's body rested.
They sat in absolute silence as Harry slipped the brush reptetitively through the silky strands of black hair. Now that he made sure to wash it every day for Snape he found that he had developed quite an admiration towards it. Snape's hair now spelled of rosmary and aloe, which just made Harry remember the wizard as he used to be, standing in front of a cauldron and deftly adding ingredient after ingredient of nature's sacrfices and offerings. Harry really wanted to see Snape like that again. He had to believe that he had the ability to make Snape into that wizard again.
Harry slipped all ten of his fingers through Snape's hair, discarding the brush somewhere on the ground. He worked his fingers slowly massaging the warm scalp beneath the curtain of black. Tiltilng Snape's head forwards, his thumbs worked the base of Snape's skull, just where the hairline met burned skin, but he ignored the fact that his simple massage would not revive the muscles there. Instead he worked his way back up, bringing Snape's head back to rest on his forehead as he buried his nose in the silky hair. He closed his eyes, allowing his fingers to see for him and his nose to touch for him. He resisted the urge to press light kisses against Snape's head, and down his neck and across the cheek that had been so neglected by all other kisses but that of the stings of a spell's flame. Harry didn't want to name what he was feeling but it was suddenly so jumbled and complicated inside of him. All he knew was that it felt good to hold Snape, like this.
'Harry. Stop.'
The words weren't harsh or loud. In fact they were so soft that it was like feathers tickling their way through Harry's mind. But he could feel the regret and restraint that lined them. And there was fear too, as if Snape thought that he was losing control of something.
It was the words that brought Harry back, but the emotions made him want to tighten his hold and forget how wrong or right his actions were..
"Sorry," he whispered, although he took in a deep breath of aloe and rosmary before he could open his eyes and allow his fingers to reatreat. "I'll go get the first potion."
He slipped out of the bed, gently lowering Snape's head and body upon cotton sheets and a mountain of pillows. He called the blue potion to him, catching it as it sailed into his palm, then rested it on the bedside table before he turned back to Snape. Together they worked on sliding out the feeding tube. It couldn't stay in overnight because once the potion was applied to Snape's thoat it would take at least eight hours to work. Which meant of course that they wouldn't know until the next morning if they had failed yet again on getting Snape to drink a glass of water.
He applied the potion to Snape's neck as quickly and efficiently as possible, before he could get caught up yet again in the action. And as he worked, he considered his actions.
What he felt, or what was building between them, left him confused. This wasn't wild lust and just wanting the man. This was more subtle, gentler and frightening in the way it wasn't a demanding and overpowering madness like Harry had felt with all his previous partners. This took him by srprise too because although he knew that he had not hated Snape for a long time now, he had no idea that he would ever yearn to be near him. Even when they were shouting at each other, he worried about Snape overtaxing himself. He cared for him now, but it wasn't that simple as it didn't just stop there. It surprised Harry but there were parts of him that thought it a good idea to try to kiss away all the hurt that Snape carried around. Harry wanted to hold him until he healed. It wasn't blatantly sexual but it wasn't in all innocence either.
'How did you meet Doctor Stetingson?'
Harry thought about that, wondering what he should divulge and what would be too much information.
"After Voldimort I did some very stupid things. I wanted to forget being a wizard but at the same time I wanted to transcend mere muggles. I felt immortal. I wanted to be human again so I'd take a lot of risks. I went bungee jumping off a bridge without the elastics that muggles use to actually bungee jump with. I walked in front of a truck once, not to kill myself or anything but just because I almost felt that it would pass right through me. I broke every bone in my body. I coudn't feel anything. I felt invisible and unreal. Like I didn't exist or I did once, but not anymore." Harry shrugged. "I had to see a doctor and Daryll was my physiotherapist. He was just a ploy because he recognized me immediately and got a Healer to mend me. That's when I decided to become a Healer. I was so tired of fighting. So tired, damn it. We've been friends since then."
'Friends?'
Harry smiled as he gazed into mismatched eyes that gave away nothing in regards to whatever thoughts that laid beyond them
"What do you want to know?" He took Snape's good hand into the palms of both his hand. "Or, what do you want me to know?"
'I am not what you wish for me to be. I am not anything in particular, but I have never considered being that..'
Harry felt his stomach clench even as he nodded to show that he knew what Snape was saying. Because, the Snape he knew had never been a sexual creature. He couldn't remember every hearing the other wizard's name being in reference with anyone else except perhaps his mother's. Lilly Potter had of course married James as soon as she stepped out of Hogwarts so Harry knew that it wasn't as if Snape had been involved with her. And then there was no one else, neither male nor female who had probably ever considered the Potions master as desirable in the slightest. Yet as sexual preferences went, Snape was telling him that he did not swing Harry's way.
"I can't appologize for what I am," Harry said softly, but with a shrug.
'And I will not apologize for what I am not.'
Harry nodded again. He tried to slip his hand away so that he could retreat in peace and leave Snape to rest. Instead the long fingers tightened their grasp around his fingers. And Harry felt the floodgates open in his mind again as Snape released his occlumency shield to allow Harry to at least feel his most basic thoughts and emotions on the issue. It was enough and too much for Harry to bear at once and this time it was he who almost begged the other man to stop.
'While I have never found myself desiring what I believe you will soon begin to offer, I am not adverse to the idea. As I've never allowed myself to ever indulge in any sort of tryst with any individual in general and since I do owe you for the things you have done or will do for me, I am willing to -'
"No!" Harry wrenched his hands away and covered his ears, although he knew it was useless and indeed the words continued as if he had not interrupted.
In another second he took Snape's hand into his again and brought it up to his lips. He kissed the palm gently, then gave it a light squueze of reassurance. Looking into those eyes, hearing the words he had heard, Harry knew that he would never ask Snape to do what he was willing to do. That Snape owed him was a debatable point but he would never expect the man to repay him with his body if he did manage to heal him.
"Go to sleep," Harry said tiredly instead. "You need sleep. So thanks but no thanks. even I hadn't thought that far ahead."
'Potter.'
But Harry shook his head. "Please, just let it go."
The eyes closed without any other form of protest. Harry waited, watching to see if they would open again, but when after an hour Snape really seemed to have fallen asleep he finally let go of the hand he was gently caressing with his thumb. Harry slid down to the cold floor, raising a knee on which he rested his head while he draped his arms around his shin. He had a nearly uncontrollable urge to laugh and never stop laughing at the ridiculous situations that he tended to get himself in.
Snape was asexual and Harry had confused, semi-sexual, semi-sweet feelings for him already.
oXo