Caring for Severus, Part V
Two more weeks passed under Potter's care. The boy seemed to have struck bargains all over that were keeping everyone placated. Some cold afternoons, when he returned from castle reconstruction, or a Ministry visit, or any number of personal calls that Severus snidely referred to as noblesse oblige, they sat by the sitting room fire and read, or even talked intermittently.
If such an activity was the highlight of Severus' day, it was only because he was a chair-ridden invalid. Potter was hardly a specimen of scintillating conversation. Severus did his best in these moments to prod him down intellectual pathways of discussion, or political ones. It was good practice for Potter, who was woefully green in both areas.
"Have the Department of Mysteries sunk their claws into you yet?" Severus needled.
He kept his eyes on his book.
Potter's green-glass eyes flicked up from his NEWT Defense textbook warily. "What would they want with me?"
"I imagine they'd be very interested in poking and prodding the only wizard ever known to have come back from the dead." Severus drawled.
Potter snorted. "I don't exactly go about the Ministry advertising it."
"Master of Death not listed on your business card, then? Special skills: immortality?"
"Ha bloody ha." Potter shuddered. "Hope Kingsley doesn't want me for the Aurors 'cause he thinks I'm immune to the Killing Curse. He's in for a shock."
Severus smirked. "One might argue your ability to thwart death preceded any titles the Hallows bestowed upon you."
Potter yawned, and turned another page. "S'not really 'thwarting'. You still die. Just, Death lets the Master choose to come back if they want. I got a choice, anyway."
Severus looked sharply at him. "And you truly have no interest in learning more about the exceptional, age-old artefacts that are poised to provide you with an array of enviable powers?"
"They don't really feel like mine." Potter said. "To me, the wand will always be Dumbledore's, whatever it says."
Severus quirked a brow. "It says?"
Potter shrugged. "The wand likes duelling. It wants to be owned by a powerful wizard so that it can get into a lot of fights. It's kind of a trouble-maker. Don't know how Dumbledore put up with it, really."
Severus sighed. It truly was strange the insights with which this ineloquent young man was blessed. He'd come back from the dead, for fuck's sake, knew wandlore well enough to hear the Deathstick speak, could speak the language of snakes, and yet couldn't get through most sentences in plain English with uttering an "um" or an "er".
He was horrified to realise he now found that irony endearing.
"And the others?"
"Well, I grew up with the cloak, so I'm used to using it, but the Stone...it's just a ticket to madness. I suppose you could use it to get lost information, from dead scholars or something, but mostly it just messes with your emotions. Everyone's better off without it."
Severus snorted. "Are you truly so unambitious?"
"I have ambition, but it's in a direction that's different to most people's." Potter shrugged. "I don't want to Do Great Things. I want to live well. I think that's almost harder, honestly."
Severus furrowed his brow. "It is."
"Being too close to power means making sacrifices." Potter continued.
"That's why you don't want the wand."
"Yeah. I mean, I don't really think I'd ever be like Voldemort, but the more you mess with powerful artefacts, the more likely that you'll want, or need to keep using them."
Severus remembered Albus' saccharine test of having the Mirror relinquish the Philosopher's Stone only to one who didn't want to use it. He knew his quarry well when he bequeathed the Hallows to Potter.
Albus had always known Potter better than Severus had, back then. But Severus liked to think that he was learning Potter now, seeing him properly-listening to the gaps in what he said, instead of anticipating the answer.
"Are you afraid of being like him?"
"He was camped in my head for fifteen years." Potter replied, glum. "I've thought his thoughts and felt his feelings. And Riddle and I grew up in sort of similar ways."
Severus' eyes narrowed. "As orphans?"
Potter averted his gaze. "It does weird things to you, when nobody wants you. You get it in your head that there's one set of rules for the normal kids, and another for you." He sighed. "Adults never quite care what happens to you in the same way that they do when there are loving parents waiting to kick up a fuss."
Severus assumed a particularly blank expression. "Petunia was not...loving?"
Potter snorted. "She loves Dudley fine."
He shook his head as if to clear it. "Anyway, what I'm saying is, I can see a bit how it all started for Riddle. It doesn't excuse what he did, but it's almost scarier to know he was just human. I'm human, too."
Severus gave him a sinister smile. "You need never fear becoming a second Dark Lord, Potter. I have no intention of living through a third Wizarding war; I would put you down, if necessary."
Potter rolled his eyes. "Thanks. Coming from you, that means a lot."
xxxx
After a month in Potter's care, Severus found himself quietly content. Potter likewise seemed content with no more payment for his labours than to spend time with Severus-when he had it.
That afternoon, when Potter came to rub unguent on Severus' flushed erection, Severus surreptitiously watched Potter's face.
His expression was determined, green gaze fixed on the task at hand. With a little flush in his cheeks, and his thicker bottom lip, Severus found that contrary to his earlier beliefs, Potter was not a clone of his father at all. There'd been an annoying sort of boyish charm in James' face, whereas Potter Junior's features were a mix of adult masculine and feminine. He had pale skin and high feminine cheekbones, but a very male jawline. His lip, soft; his eyes, blazing and bright. Severus reluctantly admitted that, even gaunt from his time on the run, Potter had grown into his looks. He had a fey, grim quality that neither of his parents had possessed, however-it left him with youthful features that carried aged expressions.
Too short in stature for a proper Byronic hero, but something of that aura.
He'd learned by now that Potter's arrogance was plate armour he wore in front of enemies. When he cared for someone-as he seemed to now, for Severus-he was unassuming and wry.
Severus came, shuddering, admiring Potter's face.
xxxx
That evening, Potter had gone to the kitchenette to make tea when Hermione Granger came through the floo like an angry erumpent.
"Harry James Potter! I cannot believe it, after everything we've been through and discussed! You bound a free house elf!"
Severus could hear her clearly from his wheelchair in the bedroom. Stealthily, he manoeuvred it so he could once again spy through the key-hole.
The red-faced young woman stood next to the youngest Weasley boy, who looked lanky and solemn. They both stood as if in judgement on Potter, for all the world like scolding parents.
Severus raised his eyebrows as Potter almost physically responded to the weight of their displeasure as it settled over him.
"Yes, I did, Hermione. Winky was miserable being free, and Andromeda's all alone with Teddy, still grieving. She needed help."
"And her needs are automatically worth more than Winky's freedom? Honestly, Harry!"
Potter took a deep breath. "No, they're not. I never would have done it if Winky hadn't wanted it."
"She doesn't know any better than to want it! She and all her people have been conditioned into servitude for thousands of years! You can't break that cycle overnight!"
"I know, Hermione, I know." Potter was practically pleading. "But Winky was drinking herself to death. Is it more important that she's free and dead, so that we can make a point to wizards generally about slavery being wrong?"
"You have no idea what this has cost the movement." Granger huffed in reply. "I'll have purebloods quoting at me that even Harry Potter is a House-elf traditionalist, as though that's unequivocal proof, for decades to come! If Andromeda needed help, why didn't you do something for her-you're Teddy's godfather, for goodness' sake! Or ask us? We'd have helped out."
"You've been in Australia, Mione! And I've been over there, every day! Not that I know what to do with a baby, and I doubt you two do either." Potter scrubbed his face. "I'm sorry I didn't think about the politics, but I'm not sorry I did it-both Winky and Dromeda are so much happier-Winky was a nanny elf, you know, so this was sort of like her dream job."
"It's not a job, Harry, it's a compulsion! Practically a mental health issue!"
"Well I can't do anything about it either way, now, can I?" Potter cried.
"Urrrrgh!" Granger stormed over to the kitchenette, where Potter had been standing moments before, and proceeded to make herself a cup of tea as angrily as possible without actually shattering the crockery.
"Listen, mate...this isn't all about the elves." Ron put in quietly. "We've got her parents settled back into their old place, but...she can't figure out how to recover all their memories. It's been hard."
Potter looked over to his friend, quivering with rage, holding her tea-cup. "Don't you speak for me, Ronald Weasley." She said in a clipped voice, taking a seat on the couch.
Potter drew a deep breath. "What can I do, short of giving Winky clothes, to fix what I've done with the elf campaign?" He asked.
"Talk Professor McGonagall into freeing, and paying a wage to, all the Hogwarts elves." Granger said promptly.
"The wages we can certainly do, but I'm not asking her to forcibly free any elves who don't really want it." Potter warned, "And not til after the castle's repaired. Otherwise she'll have kittens about the reconstruction."
"In the next twelve months then." Granger pressed.
"Done." Potter gave her a weak smile, which she returned. He looked at her, up and down, and seemed to decide something.
"Mione, about your parents-there is something you haven't tried."
"I've seen every specialist from St Mungo's to the Wollongong Institute!" Granger huffed. "It's too many memories, and it's been left for too long-it's not as simple as reversing an Obliviate right after it's been performed-"
"-That's not what I meant." Potter looked her in the eye for a moment, waiting for her to still. "We could use the Elder Wand. Its spells are supposed to never fail."
"But Harry...you said." She bit her lip.
"I know I said. We can't just pull it out any time something goes wrong. But this is too important. It might be worth it, in this one case, to go against our principles?" He gave a lopsided grin.
Granger rolled her eyes. "You're being transparent, and it's not working. But if you'll do it, Harry..." she paused, and looked over at Weasley. "Yes-the answer's yes."
xxxx
"How did it go?" Severus asked, sitting up in bed when Potter tumbled out of the fireplace an hour or so later, looking haggard.
"The Grangers are still a bit dazed, but their memories seem to be restored." Potter slumped into his nearby chair and closed his eyes.
"And the wand?"
"Safely returned." Potter replied.
"I had no idea you'd been playing nurse in yet another household. You're the boy's godfather?"
Potter opened one eye. "Yes."
"The boy is...well? No symptoms of lycanthropy?"
"Teddy is well, no symptoms so far. He's mostly a cute, pink little kid who pukes his fair share." Potter's defensive tone was obvious.
"I was merely going to offer to try to adapt the Wolfsbane potion to make it more suitable for infants, were there any emergent issues." Severus sniffed.
"You were?" Potter's voice was soft. "You know, when you're well enough, that's probably a good line of research to think about anyway. Greyback's pack took great delight in turning a lot of people, just because they could."
Severus curled his lip. "I am aware." He took a deep breath. "Potter...Harry."
Harry looked up, startled.
"You've taken on a great many responsibilities-to myself, to Hogwarts and Minerva, to Kingsley and the Ministry, to your godson, to Miss Granger and her politicking-even to the Malfoys. I find myself...worried about you."
Harry looked agog.
"You're burning yourself out. You are no doubt telling yourself that this flurry of activity you undertake daily is necessary to set the world to rights. But that's not the whole truth, is it?"
Harry drew back. "What do you mean?"
"You are avoiding being idle, so that you will not have time to think, or feel."
Harry blushed.
Severus' eyes glittered. "Wars take time to heal, as they should." He put an awkward arm out to touch Harry's wrist where it lay along the arm-rest.
Harry did not draw away.
xxxx
That evening Severus lay in bed, thinking about Harry-as it now seemed reasonable to call him in his mind-his tendency to overwork for those he loved, and the grief he was trying to smother with such dedication. He had not yet asked the youth what or who exactly, he mourned for-or whether it was simply all of them together.
Severus felt he might be able to broach the subject again if he planned it carefully-he noted with some small pride that Harry confided in him, now. Indeed, there was something growing between himself and Harry-a closeness and protectiveness he could now admit to himself he felt for the youth.
How much Severus' own attitude had changed since the war...
It ended but five weeks ago. That's all.
Yet he now struggled to summon even the ghost of his previous hatred for the young man.
When he did, noted some small degree of shame. He had inflamed, deliberately, the dislike that Harry's disorganized and often defiant student persona generated because it had been useful in fooling the Dark Lord. But also, he knew, he had enjoyed venting upon the boy's head years of spleen that James Potter had backed up in Severus' system.
Certainly, Harry had earned much of his ire through incompetence and sarcastic retorts-but Severus was willing to entertain that a portion of it, he had not.
That was not to say an apology would be forthcoming. His change in tone and form of address would have to surrogate.
Harry was unlikely to complain, at any rate.
He seldom did.
Severus lay there, contemplating that the post-war world was a strange new one.