Title: Amor Legendi
Pairing: pre-Harry/Snape
Content Notes: Ignores the epilogue, angst, mentions of wounds, discussion of love potions, Master of Death Harry
Rating: PG-13

Harry stopped when he got to the small, remote corner of the Hogwarts library where he usually sat to read. He needed to read all kinds of things, including books of spells on how to construct buildings so he could help repair the damage to Hogwarts, and books of law so he would know if he really wanted to be an Auror, and books on Charms and Transfiguration and Potions to study for upcoming NEWTS later in the summer—

But most of the time, he didn't have to read them while Snape was sitting in the chair opposite from him.

As he watched, Snape lowered his large book in cracked leather binding, which had only a few legible letters on the spine, and stared at Harry. Then he snorted and lifted it in front of his face again.

Harry hesitated, then walked over to the other, more comfortable armchair in this clearing of shelves. He'd left books beside it, and notes tucked into them, although none with his name on them. He didn't want someone to stumble across this and start plaguing him with questions.

(Everyone had questions all the time, it seemed. They wanted to know how he'd defeated Voldemort, what he was going to do next, how they should round up the Death Eaters, his perceptions of Dumbledore now that Skeeter's book had been published, whether Harry would date them. Harry came here to get them to shut up the only way he could).

Snape shifted a little as Harry sat down and reached for the book on top of the stack, but when Harry looked up, he was studiously reading. Harry shrugged and settled back with the old Charms tome he'd found, which was more readable than the modern textbooks, to learn about the difference between household and outdoor charms.

When he stood up a few hours later and left, Snape hadn't spoken a word. Harry was sure that Snape's eyes tracked him on the way out, but he said nothing.

That was…fine, honestly.

Potter came around the corner again.

Severus had known that someone was using this part of the library; the stacked books, the rumpled cloth of the chair, and above all the parchment and the nearly empty bottle of ink next to the books made it obvious. However, this was the most private place he'd found, and he hadn't thought that he'd share it often, if at all, with its previous occupant.

Then the occupant turned out to be Potter, and Severus's expectations had shifted. He'd sat literally white-knuckled that first time, waiting for Potter to pelt him with questions about how he'd survived and what he was doing here and useless apologies.

Instead, Potter had gaped, but then gone over and sat down and…

Studied.

Severus had studied him a little, too, around the cover and corners of the book, that first time. Potter had given no indication that he'd noticed, scratching quietly away with his quill and turning pages. And those were the only sounds he'd made.

Severus had no idea why he was so soothed by the thought of spending time with Potter, but he was. Perhaps it was because Potter seemed to be literally the quietest person in the castle right now. Even Minerva couldn't stop asking Severus how he'd survived and what he would do next.

(Severus had no answer to either of those questions, but that didn't seem to stop her).

Now, as he had the first time, Potter simply nodded to him and sat down in own chair, reaching for the book on Potions. Severus sneered a little on reflex as Potter settled down and reached for the parchment and quill.

Potter ignored him.

Severus went back to his own book, keeping a wary eye on Potter, but Potter continued to ignore him, not even asking him for free Potions advice as Severus had been sure he would once he'd noticed what subject Potter had chosen to study. Now and then, he chewed his quill in an absent way, but never so disgustingly that Severus had to shut his book and leave. Never once did he ask what Severus was reading.

Severus turned back to his own book, on rare snakes and rare magical poisonings, and kept reading, keeping an ear cocked for the little sounds Potter made as he wrote and kicked a leg up on the arm of the chair, but no longer disturbed by them.

Harry sighed and shook his head as he threaded through the maze of shelves, carrying the cup of tea he'd made himself. Hogwarts's kitchen had been the first part to be rebuilt, so that at least people weren't having to Apparate or walk to Hogsmeade if they wanted something to eat.

"You look ruffled. Too much post from your fans?"

Harry blinked for a moment at Snape, who was in the chair he usually used and staring around the top of a book that, once again, was too old to have a title. Harry shrugged and took his chair.

"Just a lot of questions from Ginny about when we're going to date again," he said, and closed his eyes, taking a long drink from his tea. Peppermint tea, his favorite. He'd helped the elves make it, which slightly appalled them, but also meant he could get away from Ginny faster.

"Ah, yes, of course. No doubt you will enjoy having redheaded children in a few years."

"I don't think so." Harry put down his teacup and picked up the Transfiguration book. He was beginning to have a new appreciation for the essays McGonagall had assigned them, at least. It meant that he knew there were relationships between the concepts that puzzled him even if it took him forever to tease them out.

"Why not?"

Harry blinked at the unknown phenomenon that was Snape in a chatty mood, but answered readily enough. "We don't have a lot in common anymore. She had a horrible time here, which I understand, and I had a horrible time, but that isn't enough by itself. And I think she wants it to be."

Snape sneered at him and retreated behind his book again. Harry rolled his eyes and returned to his notes, wondering idly if this was Snape's way of trying to make him irritated enough to leave the peaceful little place and not come back.

Well, too bad. Harry was here to study, and he was going to do that.

(Even if sometimes he did want to look at the ropy scars on Snape's throat and explain what he knew about them).

Severus would have liked to remain silent. After all, what did he have in common with Potter's spawn? Literally nothing. And he should have been able to do as he liked. That very lack of commonality meant that he had nothing to say to Potter.

But when Potter came into the small library space with his left arm in a sling, some notice had to be taken.

"What happened?"

Potter glanced at him, and seemed honestly not to know what he was talking about for a moment. Then he glanced down at the arm and shrugged. "Oh, that. I was eating breakfast, and realized a second before I bit into a scone that I was smelling Amortentia. So I flung it across the Great Hall, and someone it hit—well, they had a tough time last year, with the Carrows and everything, and their reflexes are always on point. So they hit my left arm with a Bone-Breaker before they thought about what they were doing."

Severus stared at Potter, and thought of many things he could say, including that the Bone-Breaker meant he'd only have to wear the sling for twenty-four hours. But the one that won the contest to get off his tongue was, "Since when do you know what Amortentia smells like?"

"Slughorn's first lesson, my sixth year," Potter said, and gestured with his wand for books and parchment to rearrange themselves. Then he Transfigured an empty bookstand into a desk he could rest his left arm on.

"Who was it? Weasley?"

Potter snorted. "Hardly. Not the kind of thing she'd do. No, probably Romilda Vane again. I'll go and tell her later that I know. That'll warn her off." He sat down and drew the desk towards him.

Severus wanted to pursue that line of questioning, but he realized abruptly that he was having a civil conversation with Potter. He hid himself behind his book with his face scalding, ashamed of himself.

Potter made no reference to it, and in fact didn't speak another word for the rest of their session in the library.

"I know it was you."

Harry's eyes darted over to Snape as he came into the library alcove. Harry already had a book in hand that Hermione had said was helpful for her Herbology NEWT studying. He just nodded to Snape and sat down in his chair, flexing his left arm, glad that it had only taken a day before Madam Pomfrey could heal it. "What was me?"

"You had something to do with the reason I survived."

Harry couldn't exactly lie about that, but he didn't see any reason to start giving Snape ammunition, either. He shrugged and began to read.

That actually worked for a few minutes, maybe because Snape didn't know what to do when Harry wasn't actually snapping at him. But then he laid down his book and demanded, "Why did you do it?"

"Do what?"

That drove Snape back into silence. As Harry had thought. Snape might suspect that Harry had something to do with his survival because there really weren't any other good candidates, but that didn't mean he knew how Harry had done it. So he had to keep glaring if he didn't have a good question.

Harry was just writing down some interesting facts about mandrakes when Snape spoke again. "Why would you want me to survive?"

Harry stared blankly at him for a long moment before he realized that the question was serious. Well, it was accompanied by a sneer, but Snape might not know how to say something anymore that wasn't. And his hands were tight on the covers of his book, in a way that Harry thought meant the question was important to him.

"Are you joking?" Harry demanded. "Without you leaving the Sword and showing me those memories, Voldemort would have won." Snape still flinched at the sound of the name, but not enough to stand up and storm away as Harry had thought he might. "Of course I wanted you to live."

"But I also killed the Headmaster. And—" Snape paused, his throat working around the words. "Did what I did in relation to your circumstances."

Even now, Harry thought, unsure whether he was exasperated or not, he can't talk about leaking the prophecy to Voldemort.

"Obviously, Dumbledore planned that with you." Harry waved his hand. "He moved us both on the board to get us to where he needed us to be. Am I angry about some of it? Of course. Does it serve any purpose to go on being angry and muttering about it for years? No. And sure, you were a bully and a bastard." He grinned a little when Snape's neck seemed to puff up like he was about to spit venom. "But the sword and the memories."

"I was still—what I was to you."

Snape sounded as if he wanted Harry to turn on him, Harry mused. Maybe because he would know how to handle that better than what he was currently getting. "Defeating Voldemort is more important to me than what I suffered in your classroom," he said evenly.

Snape stared at him for a long moment. Then he dropped his book and stormed out of the room.

Harry sighed and went back to studying. He would regret it if his honesty had chased Snape off for good, but he wasn't going to lie about it, either. And if they went back to the status quo of Snape avoiding him most of the time and snapping at Harry when he couldn't, well, that would still be better than what their status quo had been for most of Harry's Hogwarts years.

The moment Severus realized he was avoiding the alcove in the library, he made himself enter it.

Potter was sitting there with another cup of tea beside him, this one smelling like blackberries. He glanced up at Severus's entrance, nodded, and went back to writing in the book braced on his knee.

Severus sat down in the chair across from him. Potter didn't look up.

"I want to know how you did it," Severus said at last.

Potter marked his place in the book and put it down, turning to face Severus with a tension in his body that hadn't been there a few moments before. He stared at Severus, then shrugged. "The Elder Wand started pulling me towards the Shrieking Shack not long after I repaired my holly wand."

Severus narrowed his eyes—he had heard something about Potter's wand being broken—but he didn't interrupt.

Potter sighed. "I went because I thought I could bury you. The Elder Wand pointed towards your throat, though, and when I knelt down next to you, I realized the wounds were still bleeding. I didn't know how they could be, when you were dead, but."

After a moment, Severus realized that he was not going to finish that sentence. And he didn't know the answer himself, although a few of the things he had read about magical serpents like Nagini made him wonder. He gestured for Potter to go on.

Potter grimaced and massaged his own throat for a second. "So I tried to cast some healing spells with my holly wand. They didn't work. The Elder Wand lit up in my hand and vibrated, and I thought it was saying that it could fix you."

"Fix me."

"I have no idea, Snape! You were still bleeding! I thought there was still a chance!"

Severus blinked and sat back a little. Potter had never raised his voice in this small, private place before. After a moment, Severus again gestured curtly for him to go on.

Potter glanced away from him and nodded. "I laid the Elder Wand against your throat and concentrated as hard as I could. I thought—I thought some of the wounds were repairing themselves, but I thought that wouldn't make any difference if you were dead. Other than making you look nice for your funeral, I suppose.

"So I pushed, and I pushed hard, and the Elder Wand kept lighting up more and more brightly, and I thought I heard you groan, and I pushed—"

Potter's hands clenched. Severus stared at him, and then at his face, wondering what it had looked like when Potter pushed his magic through the wand. He thought he could begin to picture it.

"And then the magic left me like it was a river, and I saw your chest start to rise and fall. And the wounds in your throat had repaired themselves." Potter glanced at him and winced. "And the Elder Wand was broken."

"What?"

"I think I pushed it past what even it could do, forcing it to resurrect the dead," Potter said a little tonelessly. "I put the broken pieces back in Dumbledore's tomb, and then I used my holly wand to take you to Madam Pomfrey."

Poppy had confirmed that last bit, when Severus had asked her who had brought him in. But she hadn't said anything about the rest. Until today, Severus doubted whether anyone but Potter had known it.

"Did you tell your friends?"

Potter blinked. "Of course not. Hermione would probably say that no magic could do that and it was forbidden for a good reason, or she would try to reason with me that you were really alive and I was just mistaking you for dead. And Ron would have asked why I didn't leave you there or use the wand for something else."

Severus could hear Weasley and Granger saying exactly those words. He nodded. "And you did not want to talk about it."

"No. I want to study and get ready for my NEWTS."

"And after that?"

"I don't know." Potter looked straight at Severus when Severus would have kept pressing him, and Merlin, Severus had forgotten what it was like to have those eyes, as green as they were, boring into him. "What are you going to do in the autumn?"

"Not return to teach, you may be certain of that."

Potter snorted.

"I…am not certain," Severus said slowly. He had thought it would take much longer to find the truth behind his resurrection. And now he had it, and he did not know what to do with it.

"You don't owe me any debt," Potter said, as if he was a passable Legilimens. "And you don't have to worry about—anything else." He shrugged and picked up his book again. "Even my Cloak is a little duller than it was. And I dropped the Stone in the forest. I think the Hallows might fade now that one of them is broken."

Severus opened his mouth, then shut it. It would be a lie to say that he was not worrying about a life-debt.

And Potter had simply—deduced that, told him not to worry about that, and go back to his book.

Severus knew no one else who would have done that. James Potter would have held it over his head. Black would have laughed. Lily would have believed that Severus did owe something, simply because humans owed things to each other. Albus would have twinkled at him and devised a way to make this into part of the ongoing debt Severus owed for his redemption.

"Are you going to keep staring at me?" Potter asked, head bowed. "Only if I want that, I can go be around Ginny."

Severus sneered, and swept out of the library. But he looked back one more time when he was standing in the "doorway" to the alcove between the shelves, to the small figure studying and planning towards an uncertain future.

He didn't know for sure what his future would hold, but he would keep an eye on Harry Potter.

Harry watched Snape depart from under lowered eyelids. That had been surprisingly drama-free. Maybe he should have just told Snape the first day he'd woken up in the hospital wing.

But he hadn't known it would be drama-free then, would it? Hadn't known that Snape was capable of sitting in the same room as he was and reading silently, or discussing things in a calm, neutral voice, not at all.

The calmness had been nice. Peaceful, in the time when Harry's life was very much not.

Perhaps there would be a way to revisit it again.

Harry shook his head a little, and focused on the book in his hands again. After my NEWTS.