CHAPTER 11

The locking charm on Severus's bedroom door proved unnecessary; Harry obviously remembered what had happened the last time he had been in that room. He preferred fuming in the hall, waiting for Severus. Severus's potion had solved his problem in a radical way which he had never taken into consideration.

"Now, now, Potter, there is no visible damage, is there?" Severus asked him silkily when he found Harry waiting for him in the hall with flashing green eyes.

"You told me that it would restore the original colour!" Harry exclaimed.

"I may have implied something of the sort," Severus breathed. "You are too impatient, Potter, which partially explains your appalling Potions-brewing abilities. Things have to be done in steps. You have taken the first one. Now comes the second one."

He held out a bottle with purple liquid.

"This is the actual restorer."

"And why didn't you tell me that it involved two steps?" Harry asked indignantly.

Severus merely raised a sly eyebrow, and one corner of his mouth lifted in mocking smile.

"Drink that," was all he said.

Harry cast him a look of deep distrust.

"How do I know that this won't do something…unexpected to me?"

Severus lowered his eyebrow and raised the other one.

"The Headmaster would be rather displeased if I conducted further experiments on your pubic area."

Harry glared at him and gulped down the contents. It tasted of cough syrup.

"Thanks," he said cautiously.

"Spare me the details of the results," Severus said disdainfully, marching away with the empty receptacle, "but your, ah, tresses should grow back sufficiently to form an ideal nest for a family of birds."

"What?!" Harry was starting to sound slightly hysterical. "Tresses? Birds?!"

"I recommend that you simply drop your pants," Severus said, closing the door behind him. Harry rushed back to his room. His nether regions were itching mightily, worse than when he had fallen an unknowing victim to depilation. Harry pulled down his trousers and underwear for a quick inspection. After what Severus had said about a bird's nest, he had panicked and feared the opposite of a baby's bottom, plagued by visions of bristling hedges.

"Oh, good! Right colour, too."

He hauled up his clothes again with a relieved sigh and went to wash his hands. He wondered whether he should tell Fred and George that Severus Snape, of all people, had managed to find an "antidote" to their pastilles. And that the man had a particularly vindictive sense of humour. Harry discovered that he was smiling.

On Monday, Harry's busy training schedule started. Kingsley Shacklebolt turned out to be an excellent teacher, combining patience and friendliness with a firm and demanding attitude, thus motivating and challenging Harry. Harry also had regular lessons with Professors McGonagall and Moody, who took turns at instructing him. Now that Harry was busy, he felt more confident, encouraged and less prone to thinking all the time of his unusual marriage. Severus, in the meantime, was involving him to a "minimal extent", as Severus himself put it, in his Potions work and research. The dour wizard treated him with cool detachment, rarely speaking to Harry unless it was to ask him to chop up Potions ingredients (swooping to Harry's table every now and then to make sure that he was cutting them the right way), shelf new books in the library, label Potions jars, stock the ingredients cupboards etc. Harry worked neatly and quietly, very often with Severus brewing some nameless potion or the other. Once, an enormous cloud of bright pink smoke issued from the cauldron, covering everything in a dense clingy fog. Harry's eyes began to tear and he coughed. His knife slipped and he cut his finger.

"Ouch!"

He did not dare dispel the smoke with a charm in case it was part of whatever experiment Severus was conducting. He heard some dark muttering from the thickest point of the smoke cloud, including a few four-letter words. Then the smoke suddenly vanished. Severus marched over to Harry.

"Are you all right?" he asked abruptly.

"Yes, I'm fine. I just cut myself when all that smoke appeared out of nowhere."

"It appeared from the cauldron, Potter," Severus said irritably, taking Harry's hand and studying the cut finger. He extracted his wand and passed it over the cut, murmuring softly in Latin, leaving the skin unblemished.

"Wow! Thank you, Severus," Harry said, smiling at him.

Severus did not respond, walking back to his cauldron instead. Harry resumed his work. It was a bit better than it had been in his days as a student in Severus's class. They were interacting – but it was still very distant, glazed with ice. Severus did not seem to take a personal interest in Harry or in what he did. Harry was genuinely curious about Severus and his research but was rebuffed on asking Severus questions concerning his person or his work. The short-tempered Slytherin informed him that he was not interested in "boring small-talk" and that he didn't see why Potions would interest Harry, considering his past "abysmal performances" in his classes. Harry was treated more as an under-assistant than as his husband; the important thing was that Severus was superior and Harry inferior. When Severus had first told Harry that he could help him with his work, Harry had been pleased, viewing this has a step forwards in their precarious relationship. Now he realised that Severus was indifferent to him and did not know what to do with him. So why not make use of him? He did live in the rooms over which Severus had presided for years. He was still not welcome to Severus's rooms. His moving-in must have been akin to an invasion in Severus's eyes. His hope that their marriage would improve started to succumb to resignation. Especially when he was away from his lessons with Shacklebolt and Severus's two fellow-teachers, his hopelessness would gnaw at him as he sat in his bedroom or went out on broom rides. The bottom line was that neither he nor Severus was happy with the marriage. Harry longed for the day the Hogwarts students would return, filling the castle with voices and a hundred activities. The lessons, letters from Harry's friends and Harry's conversations with Nessa prevented him from stagnating like a plant which received only the bare minimum of attention and managed to eke out a dull and grey life. Harry just the same admitted to himself that it was better than being with the Dursleys. Nessa soon developed topics for their talks.

"Innocence. Let us talk about innocence today, young one," she said as Harry drew up a chair to her portrait. Severus had sneered at the addition of the chair but not said anything. Nessa coiled herself in front of her pestle.

"You are innocent, young one. I am not acquainted with all the details concerning your husband, but he has a dark past, and he mourns the loss of his innocence. One of the forms of innocence is when you can smile from the heart."

"And he can no longer do that," Harry said, drawing up a knee and embracing it.

"But you can."

"It is so difficult to do that when he is around," Harry confessed with a sigh.

"I am sure the Headmaster was thinking of that aspect when he arranged your marriage," Nessa said.

"It's going to be about two months since we married and nothing much has changed between us," Harry answered. "If he hated me before, then he is indifferent to me now, or he still hates me but is being careful not to let it show too much. I'd really like to know him. He won't let me."

"One day, he will let you," Nessa said.

"You're so optimistic."

"It's one of the things the world lacks," Nessa answered with her hissing staccato laugh.

"Yeah. That's true."

"Innocence and self-confidence are often siblings," Nessa remarked. "The Potions Master is deeply insecure at heart, more than you, young one. He envies you. I saw how he looked at you when you and I last conversed. He cannot talk Parseltongue, for instance. He threw away his innocence on his quest for security, the wrong kind of security, that much I can tell."

"Nessa…Is he beyond all hope? Is it too late for him? Will he always be so bitter about life?"

"Not unless something changes. Not unless he can taste and cherish a drop of innocence."

Harry smiled a little bitterly.

"He took my innocence, you know…"

"Ah. That was only your physical innocence, young one, wasn't it? Tell me, did he take your heart and soul when you fulfilled your bond?"

Harry bit his lip and shook his head. To speak of the experience still caused him pain.

"You see," Nessa said gently, "blood bonds, marriages, consummation and all these intimate types of relationships…If there is no emotional and spiritual exchange, young one, and only so-called political reasons behind them…then they are invalid and null for the soul."

"He doesn't want to divorce me. He seems to think that he owes the Headmaster too much to disappoint him by divorcing me. I'm sorry that I'm wailing to you about my marriage all the time, Nessa."

"Young one, I can see that your marriage is very important to you. You are not wailing to me. You are trying to make it work while he is hiding. There is a spark of optimism somewhere. And don't forget that lots of students will soon be coming to this empty building. You'll see how everything will change. Do you remember that art class? Why don't you sign up for it? You will be with others."

Harry was indeed looking forward to seeing Ginny and Luna, both in their seventh year, again. He also decided to take Nessa's suggestion and sign up for the art class. He did like sketching and drawing. It would give him something creative and expressive to do.

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