A Year Like None Other

aspeninthesunlight

Story Summary:
A letter from home? A letter from family? Well, Harry Potter knows he has neither, but all the same, it starts with a letter from Surrey. A letter that sends Harry down a path he'd never have walked on his own. It will be a year of big changes, a year of great pain, and a year of confronting worst fears. It will be a year of surprising discoveries, of finding true strength, of finding out that first impressions of a person's true colours do not always ring true. It will be a year of paradigm shifts. And from the most unexpected sources, Harry will have a chance to have that which he has never known: a home ... and a family. (A Snape adopts Harry fic.)
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Chapter 29 - Long After Midnight

Posted:
05/15/2006
Hits:
7,086
Author's Note:
Betaed by the Fabulous Mercredi.

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, or this fictional universe. JK Rowling, some publishers, and some film companies own everything. I'm not making anything from this except a hobby.

Summary: A letter from home sends Harry down a path he'd never have walked on his own. A sixth year fic, this story follows Order of the Phoenix and disregards any canon events that occur after Book 5. Spoilers for the first five books. Have fun!

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A Year Like None Other

by Aspen in the Sunlight

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Chapter Twenty-Nine:
Long After Midnight

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The windows in the hospital wing shattered into millions of tiny shards as the stone walls abruptly buckled, then righted themselves.

And still Harry screamed, even as he felt another enormous surge of magic washing in him and over him and out through his skin. The walls all around began to blaze with such fierce, unnatural light that Harry could feel it even if he couldn't see it.

The world began collapsing all around him, and the only thing that was real were his screams. Beyond desperate, they were begging, pleading, frantic, and this time, there was more than a name to them. Snape. Now. Now. Now. Snape. Now!

A litany, pouring through his brain and out his teeth.

Then other noises broke through his frenzy, even as he flailed and kicked and batted hands away. He heard the whoosh of a Floo, and solid footsteps coming towards him, and a voice he recognised shouting, "Harry!"

But Harry couldn't tell if Snape was calling his name from inside the dream, or from just beside his bed. He couldn't see to find out, either. It felt like darkness was consuming him, like it wasn't just something surrounding him with endless black; it was deep inside him, too, running through his veins, lodged within his marrow. Panic taking over completely, Harry convulsed and screamed again, behind it a horrified gurgling noise, for he could feel a third surge of magic beginning to gather deep down in the pit of his bones---

"Harry, I'm right here!" The voice came again, louder, as strong fingers snatched up both his hands and squeezed them. Hard. He'd fought the other people reaching out for him; he'd thrashed like an enraged basilisk, unable to bear it, screaming all the louder every time they tried to grab him. But this touch was different. Some part of him recognised it, even though the grip was so fierce it actually hurt. That wasn't important. All that mattered was one thing: this touch brought him back to a consciousness of himself. He became Harry again, not a mindless well of need that lashed out at everyone with fists and voice and magic, all at once.

This touch tamed his wild magic.

Snape's grip levelled off the moment he stopped thrashing. Harry felt like he'd just been trampled, but his hands held securely in his teacher's, he started to calm down. He'd been breathing for forever through his mouth, it seemed; screaming so much it actually felt dry inside. Closing it finally, rolling his tongue over his teeth, he sucked a breath of air in through his nose, and at once smelled something so rank and awful that it made him think he'd lose every bit of food he'd ever eaten.

He didn't know if his face had turned puce, or if his queasy groan told the tale, but Snape realised the problem at once. "Albus, my robes!" the Potions Master commanded, his hands still locked to Harry's. "Vanish them away, inner and outer both! And apply a freshening charm to my clothes."

The air near him tingled with magic, and as the awful smell vanished, Harry inhaled a scent he'd come to know in Devon. His scent, laved by spells and charms until there was nothing left but just the clean smell of his clothes, and the man inside them. To Harry, it was a scent that meant care and comfort; warm buttered oatmeal and honeyed water; and restfulness instead of panic, even while his injuries had ached and the world all around was endless dark.

Harry breathed the smell in deeply, and relaxed still further.

It came to him that Snape hadn't let go of his hands. Harry flexed his fingers, but not to free them. He just wanted to feel that the grip was really there, that he was awake now, and no longer in that half-dreaming state he'd come to know so well in Devon.

Madam Pomfrey began chastising in her high, sing-song voice, "Has no-one any sense? That magic he just let loose! Let him go, Severus! The boy can't bear so much as a finger applying salve--"

"But look, Poppy," Dumbledore's soft voice interrupted. "Look at him."

Even without sight, Harry could tell she was, that she was staring. Hating the sensation prickling at the back of his neck, he rolled until he could hide his face against the side of Snape's torso, burrowing his cheek against the man's soft shirt. Cotton... well-worn, well-washed cotton, the weave fuzzy with age. It would be black, he thought, and long-sleeved to hide the Dark Mark. Frowning, Harry shifted closer to his teacher, wondering what was going to happen to Snape now that Voldemort's harsh summons would have to be ignored.

"This is not how trauma recovery proceeds," Madam Pomfrey was still insisting. "I am a trained Medi-Witch, as you well know! Severus may have had the best of intentions, but he was present at the events, participated in them. And now Mr Potter is clinging to him; Albus, this is not healthy for the boy--"

Thankfully, that was all Harry heard. Her voice faded down the corridor where Dumbledore had--gently but firmly, no doubt--led her.

As soon as her protests faded off, Snape slid an arm beneath Harry's shoulders and effortlessly drew him up so the boy could rest a cheek against his chest. Good thing, thought Harry. He'd almost started to suffocate there, with his face pressed in against his teacher's side.

For a long time after that, Harry lay silent, just soaking in the feeling of someone who would sit quietly with him, someone whose presence didn't make him feel like he had to put on a show of being cheerful and brave. He wasn't brave, not now; he was afraid to so much as speak. Or maybe it was a case of being confused, of not knowing what to say, or how to say it, even. Madam Pomfrey had a point, after all. Snape had been there, had helped hurt him, or at least, allowed others to. But he hadn't had much option; Harry understood that, when he could rise above the memory of the staggering pain, and think about things rationally. Samhain... that wasn't who Snape really was. That had been a feint.

Afterwards... that was what mattered.

Afterwards, when Harry had lain dazed and half-conscious, unable to recall or remember much of what he'd suffered during Samhain. Snape had held him and held him, hour past hour just like this, sitting beside him, holding his hands, letting Harry lean into his strength and draw from it. His body remembered that, recognised the comfort, he thought. His body knew, just like the thinking part of his mind, that Snape was no threat. Strangely, his teacher's touch was the only one he could bear, but more than that, it was a touch he wanted. Craved, even. Now that he was being held, he realised it was like getting water after an eternity of thirst. But perhaps that wasn't so strange, after all. Snape's touch was the one thing that stood apart from the horror, because Harry had been given so much of it then, all he could want, really, in that time before he'd woken up. Before he'd realised he was supposed to be afraid.

It was Snape who finally broke the silence enveloping them.

"Better now, Harry?"

Harry gave a jerky nod, his cheek brushing against the hard little buttons on Snape's shirt. He wanted to ask so many things, but every one of them sounded stupid even to him. Do you have to hate me now? You aren't really going to stop making my potion, are you? Why did you have to be the one to hold me down while they tormented me.... He cast about for something better to start off with, something that wouldn't have Snape sneering at him and going back to Mr Potter.

"Um, Professor? What was that terrible smell?"

Snape's chest moved up and down in a slow, calming rhythm as he breathed. "Sight Restorative Potion. I believe you're familiar with it."

"Oh, yeah." Harry shuddered, thinking he'd almost rather stay blind that drink that dead liquorice flavour twice each day. He didn't say that, though. Some frightened part of him couldn't bear the thought that Snape didn't like him, not really, not anymore. He'd move away if Harry said something insulting, wouldn't he? And Harry needed to be held, even if his teacher was only here because he'd thrown a screaming fit. "Smelling it was worse than drinking it," he settled for explaining.

"It would be," Snape remarked, easing one hand from Harry's and bringing it up to rest it very gently against the back of the boy's head. His fingers wove themselves through the strands, but other than that, didn't move. "You're sensitized to it because it's in your system. It took me a moment to realise; nobody else could detect the smell at all."

"You were making it, again?"

"I was spilling it, you idiot child," Snape softly replied, pulling his head a little bit more snugly against him as he said it. It came to Harry then, that strange as it might seem, when Snape said that phrase he meant it... affectionately. It was sad, in a way, as though Snape hadn't ever had anyone he could care about, and didn't really know how it was supposed to work.

Though come to think of it, this slow hug where he could feel the man's heartbeat through the slightly fuzzy fabric of shirt.... this was pretty good. If it lasted. That was the part that worried Harry. What if Snape was only being nice to him because he so obviously needed it? Because if he didn't, Harry's wild magic might lash out again?

"I spilled it all over me when Albus connected the Floo to my laboratory, and I heard you," Snape went on, his voice calm and matter-of-fact. Not even angry, and when had Snape ever not been angry over a potions accident? It was odd, but Harry lost track of the strangeness as his teacher talked on. "Poppy should have let me know at once that you wanted me, but I don't think she realised you were screaming my name as a summons." He paused. "Was it a nightmare, Harry?"

Harry nodded, a desperate little sob catching in his chest, somewhere near his heart. "Should be used to them," he muttered, feeling cowardly and ashamed, by then. He was glad Snape had gotten there, and helped him stop those awful, uncontrollable surges of violent magic, of course, but still, he'd been having bad dreams for years and years.

"These aren't your usual nightmares, I expect," Snape returned, sighing, his fingers moving downward until they rested on Harry's nape. He began to rub the pads of his fingers there, in slow, tiny circles that made the boy's tense shoulders loosen and finally droop. "Samhain, yes?"

Harry shook his head and muttered something unintelligible, his shoulders tautening again, but then Snape said very slowly, as though it was being dragged from him, "I have nightmares about it, as well."

Harry brought his cheek up, wishing he could see his teacher's expression. "Really?"

This time there was no pause before the admission. "Yes."

They sat a while in silence after that, probably because, Harry thought, neither one of them needed to detail out loud just what was in their dreams. They knew.

"Do you need me to say how sorry I am, Harry?" Snape abruptly demanded, his voice gone cold.

"Sorry I have nightmares?" Harry said without thinking, but then his mind caught up. "Or sorry because you were um.... there, with them?" Helping them, he almost said, but didn't.

"Don't be a bloody fool," Snape sneered. "Of course because I was there with them."

Harry shivered a bit, the twice-repeated phrase making him a bit ill. He didn't want to talk about Samhain, he really didn't. Or at least, not yet. '"I know you're sorry," he offered, and then heard himself volunteering, "I dream about Devon too, you know."

Harry felt's Snape's breathing jerk as his teacher questioned, "You recall being at the cottage?"

"Yeah..." Biting his lip, Harry tried moving a bit. He hadn't realised at first, probably because he'd still been so recently emerged from the nightmare, but it was a little bit awkward leaning just his cheek against Snape, who seemed to be sitting on the edge of the bed. He didn't want to lose the touch, which really helped, but he was starting to think he might slide down into the sheets if he didn't get into a more stable position. Easing one hand from his teacher's grasp, Harry pushed up on it and moved his cheek up, until it was just beneath Snape's chin. That let him sling an arm around the man's ribs, and gave him something to hang onto. Of course, he held his breath the whole time, even though by then, it didn't seem too likely that the man would shove him away.

Snape didn't shove him away. In fact, he scooted more fully onto the bed, propping his back up on Harry's pillows before gathering him close against the length of his side, tucking his head into the curve of his shoulder. Ah, did that feel good. Strange that it would, though, with the childhood he'd had. Really, nobody had ever lain beside him, offering comfort and warmth. Not once, not ever, not anyone.

Not until Devon.

"I remember you holding me," Harry went on after a bit. "Just like this, for hours. I remember wishing there could be a house-elf to stoke the fire and bring my broth, because I hated it when you had to get up and leave me."

"It's odd you would remember," Snape mused, his chest rising and falling in that comforting rhythm. "You were asleep."

"No," Harry yawned, a lull washing over him. "Half-dreaming."

Snape accepted that, saying only, "You're almost half-dreaming again. You need your rest; I'll leave you to sleep, now--"

"No!" Harry cried, the word now doused with fear. "Stay. Please, Professor. Oh, please. I don't want..." Gritting his teeth, Harry broke off speaking. It was awful, what he had been going to say. Awful, but true.

His teacher hadn't moved. "You don't want what?" And then, when the boy didn't answer, in a harder tone, "What, Harry?"

Harry felt his legs clenching up just thinking about it, and a surge of anger, and something else he couldn't identify, churning inside him. "I don't want to have to blow the windows out again, just to get you up here, all right?"

Snape's voice went low and hard, as he spoke in clipped syllables, each one distinct. "What do you mean?"

Harry sat up a little bit straighter, all exhaustion burned away by the anger and the other feeling clawing up inside him. Hurt, that was it. Yeah, hurt. Because he'd needed this before, damn it! Needed to talk, to be held! And Snape had ignored him and sneered on and on about potions to Dumbledore, and walked straight past to Pomfrey's office without a word to Harry, and told Hermione to get out when Harry had sent that apology!

"Well that's what it took, didn't it?" he challenged, almost reeling with it, he was so angry. "You hate my guts again, just like before, and don't think I don't know it! You're only here now because the headmaster was afraid I'd let my magic really fly if I didn't get my way! I bet he thought I might burn down a whole wing of the castle, or something, or blow the stones apart or---!"

Snape pulled him back down and settled him close against his chest, the embrace firm and safe as Harry trembled.

"Hush, you idiot child," he whispered against his hair, tightening his arms about the boy until he stilled. "I don't hate you, Harry, of course I don't. I haven't hated you for..." his voice dropped still lower, to wryly admit, "well, for a while, we'll say."

"Oh, sure," Harry sneered.

"I should probably tell you how I, what I..." Snape muttered, his teeth clicking in an agitation Harry could feel communicated through the man's hands, as well. His teacher cleared his throat, started to say something, then abruptly stopped. Finally, after yet another abortive attempt, he managed to admit, "Harry. Listen to me. I don't hate you at all."

As declarations went, that one was absolutely, incredibly lame, Harry thought, but he liked it all the same. For one thing, he could tell it was true. But beyond that, it seemed to him that Snape was covering something he felt but couldn't say. Severus does not care to show emotion, the headmaster had said, so yeah, Harry could listen to I don't hate you at all and know that there was more to it than that.

When Snape shifted slightly, Harry clutched at him, afraid he was going to leave. He wouldn't want to sit with Harry now, would he? After he'd just unbent enough to say something like that? If he knew Snape, the man would disappear again. Either that, or hide behind some cold mask of indifference. "Don't leave yet," Harry softly cried. "I want to talk, all right?"

"All right," Snape agreed, his own voice surprisingly easy. Harry thought then that maybe he didn't know Snape as well as he had thought. The man seemed... well, okay, even after what he'd just said.

Snape shifted back, adjusting them more comfortably on the narrow bed. "We'll talk a while longer."

Harry nodded, and then thought for a while, trying to decide what they'd better talk about. It seemed like dozens of questions were crowding his mind. Even worse, the more he melted against Snape, the safer he felt, which just meant that he could dream up even more things he'd like to say. But that was good, wasn't it? It was nice to finally feel safe; it meant he could to admit one of the things that had been bothering him. "That first day when I woke up here, you said you had to work on potions... which I think is true, but I also think you were using it as an excuse to avoid me. Because you said you'd come by later, when you had time, and you never did!"

"I did, Harry," Snape insisted, still in that easy voice that Harry could centre on. "You were asleep, but I sat with you, for a while. Albus can tell you that; he was there."

"Okay, fine," Harry muttered, deciding he could accept that at face value. It wasn't like he needed to check up on Snape's story. Actually, he thought it was strange that his teacher had mentioned the headmaster like that. "Why haven't you come back since, even after I apologized? And why were you so nasty at first, anyway?"

Snape sighed, a long drawn-out sound as he inhaled and exhaled, then muttered, "I truly do not know where to begin.... Harry, when you first woke up here, I felt... it's difficult to explain. I was certain you would remember Samhain; I didn't expect you to remember Devon in the least. I anticipated that speaking with you would be... well, difficult. But still, I did intend to try. A little, at least."

"Then why didn't you?"

Snape pulled him even closer, and wrapped an arm completely around his back. "Because when I came through the door, you were telling Dumbledore what had made Samhain so very horrible. You were hurt by someone you trusted."

"But that is what made it so horrible," Harry murmured, slow to understand. "Or one of the things... Oh. Oh, no... I get it. You thought I meant I'd been hurt by someone I had trusted and didn't any longer?"

"It would be a perfectly rational reaction on your part," Snape quietly admitted.

"No, it wouldn't," Harry argued, wondering how to explain. "'Cause I knew, see. I knew from my dreams that there'd be a way out, that I wasn't going to end up dead that night. You had to wait for a chance, watch for it." He gulped, his fingers knotting in Snape's shirt. "Samhain was awful because I couldn't hate you for it, Professor, not even during. It sounds stupid, I know, but it's true... hating you would have made things, I don't know. Easier." Harry paused, then plunged on. "Anyway, I thought you didn't care about trust."

"Ah. Well... so did I."

For another long while, they just lay there, listening to the wind whistle through the open stone portals that used to be windows. It came to Harry that Snape was being deliberately quiet, letting Harry guide the conversation. Maybe it was because Harry had insisted he wanted to talk; his teacher was letting him.

"Why did you tell Hermione to get out like that?" he finally gathered his nerve to ask. "I was just trying to apologize, you know. I'd have told you in person if you'd have come up here."

Snape rolled slightly onto his side, facing Harry, settling the boy's head onto a pillow. It came to Harry to wonder how much light there was, how much Snape could see of his expression. Wondering that made him want to hide.

"I suppose," Snape said after a moment, "I used that tone of voice because I mistook what your apology was for, Harry."

"Huh? What did you think it was for?"

He felt his teacher's legs shifting on the bed. The sound of it was restless. "I had been delivering potions shortly before, when you were yelling at your friends not to even mention my name. After Miss Granger saw fit to announce my presence--tactless girl--I surmised you were apologizing that I had overheard how much you detested me."

"But I don't detest you."

"Yes," Snape drawled beside him. "I had gathered as much."

Harry almost wanted to punch him lightly in the ribs, but decided it was a little too juvenile for the Professor to tolerate well. "What you heard was me yelling for them to just shut up, 'cause Ron seemed to think you could have saved me from everything if you'd wanted to bother," Harry admitted, frowning. "He doesn't get it. You were all I had, at that meeting, and you had to keep your head and keep yourself alive so you could get me out!"

"I think you actually do understand," Snape murmured, sounding rather startled.

"Yeah, of course I do," Harry muttered. "I'm not the least bit stupid. But even so, you know..."

"I know," Snape commiserated. "Well, then. I suppose I must have frightened Miss Granger."

"Hermione's pretty fright-proof."

"Ah, yes, the first-year who thought she could handle a Mountain Troll all by herself."

"Oh, she just made that up," Harry clarified.

"Hmm," Snape murmured, but didn't ask more. Or rather, not about that. "It occurs to me to wonder why you sent Miss Granger with that apology, Harry."

Uh-oh. Harry braced himself, and admitted in a small, guilt-ridden voice, "Because you can't... er, work for the old crowd any longer, at least not doing your usual job, if you catch my drift... and now when your forearm starts to hurt, you won't be able to do anything about it, and... well, it's all my fault!"

"It is?"

Whatever Harry had expected to hear, it certainly wasn't that. "Well, yeah," he went on, thinking it a bit weird he'd have to. "I mean, I left the house."

"Ah." Snape laid a hand on his shoulder. "This reminds me of another conversation we've had. I think it's a habit of yours, this taking on of far more blame than is warranted by the circumstances."

"Professor, I left the house," Harry tried explaining again, his tone that time the same kind of one he'd use to get a point across to a five-year-old.

"Yes, I know, Harry," Snape replied in exactly the same tone. "But this isn't like your typical escapade. You didn't use your father's invisibility cloak; you weren't trying to sneak out of bounds."

"What difference does that make? I ended up next door," Harry protested. "And... and..." he gulped. "I figured you'd think I al- almost deserved what I got, 'cause I wanted to know what it was like at a m- m- meeting, and I was really rude to you over it, and then I found out the h- hard way---"

The hand on his shoulder squeezed, hard. "That is obscene, Harry. You didn't deserve what happened."

"I didn't say I deserved it, I said you probably thought I did!"

"You can't really think that of me," Snape quietly asserted, but then his voice lost its confident edge. "Can you?"

"Guess not," Harry said after a moment. "Um, I mostly wondered about it after Dumbledore explained how Malfoy managed to nab me, 'cause you'd been up here being so mean to me. But then later..." Harry sighed. "I shouldn't have let it happen, I know that."

Snape sounded like he was scowling when he countered, "I'm the one who let it happen, Harry. It was my job to protect you! Mine, and Lupin's, I should say, but I was the one who inspected the cellars. Quite obviously, I didn't do an adequate job of it, as I left not only an exit, but one which didn't even appear to be one." He paused to draw a slow, controlled breath. "It is I who should apologize to you."

"If you think that," Harry cried, those awful feelings from that night welling up in him, "why'd you tell the headmaster you didn't even want to make my Eyesight Elixir? You said you'd rather see me suffer!"

Snape went absolutely rigid as the words shot from between his teeth. "Harry! I wasn't talking about you!"

"You called me an irresponsible idiot," Harry blubbered, tears spilling into his eyes and down his cheeks as he balled up a fist and punched his pillow. "You always call me that."

"Because I've seen you be one," Snape dryly put in, but then his voice gentled once again. "But not this time, Harry. You didn't know you were leaving all margin of safety. You weren't indulging your saving-people thing."

"It was a s-- s-- saving-snake thing," Harry miserably admitted, sniffling, raising a pyjama-clad arm to wipe at his eyes. "I just w-- wanted to find Sals, that was all."

"Shhh," Snape murmured, stroking his hair. "It's all right, Harry. When I realised what had happened, I was horrified, but I wasn't angry with you, I promise."

"Yeah, well you were angry at somebody," Harry returned, unwilling to let it go.

"Lupin."

"Remus?" Harry questioned, lifting a confused face, though it didn't do much good when he couldn't see.

"Yes, Remus," his teacher snarled, abruptly losing all semblance of calm as he yanked both his hands off Harry. "That idiot werewolf left the house, and then, as if that weren't irresponsible enough, sauntered back in broad daylight, just as if he'd never heard of a Floo! He practically invited Lucius Malfoy to investigate Grimmauld Place! And for what? Bloody ice cream, as though you were a child to be comforted by sweets!"

Harry didn't think he'd ever heard Snape be angrier, not even when Sirius had mysteriously escaped the Dementor's Kiss. He shivered, glad that all that fury wasn't directed his way. On the other hand, he didn't want it directed at Remus, either.

"It was an innocent mistake," he pointed out. "Kind of like mine. I mean, Remus wasn't trying to give away my location."

"It was nothing like yours!" Snape sneered. "Short of examining blueprints, you had no way of knowing that you were following your snake through an outside wall. Lupin knew full well that certain parties wanted you and were more than capable of following him to you!"

"But he didn't know Uncle Vernon had blabbed I'd been hanging about with him!" Harry said in Remus' defence. "He didn't know anybody would think to follow him!"

"He knew it was possible!"

"You're just still mad at him from your school days! You've never stopped!"

"Don't presume to judge my anger, Harry," Snape warned in a voice that was cold, clear through.

"I won't." Because Snape's anger, after all, wasn't really the point, was it? It was what he did with it that mattered. "But please, Professor, you can't stop making his Wolfsbane over it! Please tell me you won't. That's just awful!"

"Yes, it would be, wouldn't it?" Snape drawled in a dark, sardonic voice.

"You can't hate Remus so much that you want innocent people to get killed!"

The Potions Master scoffed at that. "Oh, but Lupin's a noble Gryffindor, Harry. Not too much unlike you, actually. He'll chain himself so that he's no option but to attack himself when the moon goes full."

"Stop it!" Harry cried.

"Oh, I will make your mangy friend's potion," Snape growled, placing a finger across Harry's lips when it seemed the boy would speak. "Just do not thank me."

Harry nodded, thinking that was fair enough, and wiped again at his eyes. It hadn't seemed significant while emotion had just been churning inside him, but now that he was calmer, he realised that he was crying. It was probably too late to hide his face, but he tried it anyway, feeling defensive. Severus Snape had probably never cried. Or not since he was little. Sixteen, though, wasn't so little.

"Don't," Snape urged, nudging Harry's head a bit away from him. "If your tear ducts have healed, it means the Restorative Potions are beginning to work as they should. Lumos." Harry heard the swish of a wand. "Can you see any difference?"

"No... maybe something. It's not light, though. The blackness looks... well, less black."

"Grey? Colours?"

"No, just less black. I can't really explain." Snape hadn't said Nox, so Harry figured this was as good a time as any to ask what he'd been wondering about ever since he'd woken up. "Um, Professor?"

"Hmm?" Snape sounded like he was still peering closely at his face.

"You'll tell me the truth if I ask for it, won't you? The plain honest truth, no matter how horrible it turns out to be?"

Snape considered that a moment before answering. "Are you asking me never to misdirect you?"

Harry didn't want to open that whole can of worms, not right then. "Actually, I was just wanting to know what you saw. Um, you know, when you look at me."

Snape sounded a bit puzzled. "Dark hair, green eyes--- ah, you mean your eyes and what they look like, now. Yes, I'll tell you the truth. Hold still." Harry heard the wand moving again, and felt his eyelids being pried open. He couldn't help it; he jerked himself away.

Snape said nothing of it, merely detailing, "Your eyes are intact, the irises still green, although the colour may be more.... intense than before. Glossier, somehow. At any rate, I can see residual scarring on your cornea. Like scratches on glass, Harry. Faint to imperceptible, unless one looks closely. You're nearly healed. I think tomorrow you should begin the Eyesight Elixir."

Harry breathed a sigh of relief. All in all, things didn't sound too bad. But Eyesight Elixir? "Haven't I been drinking it all along? That rotten smelling stuff?"

"Potter," Snape drawled, effortlessly snapping into full Professor mood, "Sight Restorative Potions and Eyesight Elixir are completely different in formulation and use."

"Yes, sir," Harry muttered, before another thought occurred to him. "Do you have a batch that Malfoy hasn't had his finger in? Because Ron and Hermione told me he's been helping you make my potions, and... well..."

"Yes?"

"That's just gross," Harry announced, lifting his chin. "And..."

"Oh, please do speak your mind," Snape put in, sounding... well, Harry didn't know. Sort of snide and amused, all at once.

"Yeah, well you asked for it," Harry muttered, deciding that he might as well. It's not like this was some little thing he could just ignore, was it? "Letting Malfoy anywhere near my Potions is pretty irresponsible of you, don't you think, Professor? No offence, but are you thinking? His shitefaced father did just try to burn me alive, you know."

"Draco Malfoy is not his father," Snape briskly stated, abruptly levering himself off the bed and away from Harry. "Nonetheless, he has not been helping make your potions. Your friends are mistaken."

"Then why doesn't he have to do the bookwork everybody else has been getting?"

"I thought you trusted me," Snape remarked. Harry could almost see that raised eyebrow.

He thought of saying I thought so, too, but decided it was petty, not to mention untrue. And really, it sort of touched him that Snape appeared to care about his trust, so he figured he'd better not abuse it. "Listen," he sighed. "I trusted you through tortures from the pits of Hell, so don't you dare claim I have to prove myself by not asking what's going on. It's my right to know, damn it! Besides, Malfoy keeps coming around here, and... it worries me. I don't know what he's up to."

"He's not up to anything."

"Yeah?" Harry challenged, pushing up to lean on an elbow. "Don't you know you can't believe a word that comes out of that Slytherin's mouth?"

"I'm a Slytherin, too, don't forget," Snape smoothly reminded him. "Now, as for Mr Malfoy, he has come to the hospital wing on my orders. Mine, and Albus'. He has been endeavouring to speak to you. It is... a condition. The rest you must hear from him."

"And in class?" Harry pressed.

It sounded to Harry as though Snape had crossed his arms in front of his chest. "It may surprise you to learn this, but Mr Malfoy does not approve of his father's... handiwork, shall we say. He wished to do something to help, Harry--"

"Malfoy did not ask to help me," Harry interrupted.

"Oh yes, he most certainly did, and as he's really quite good at brewing, I set him to making Painless Sleep Draughts. He doesn't know I've been pouring his results into the general student supply, and I ask that you not tell him."

"That little misdirection might end up poisoning somebody," Harry pointed out, flopping onto his back.

"Do you really believe I ever stock the infirmary with a potion, even one of my own making, without verifying it thoroughly, first?"

Harry didn't mean to be dim, but that just didn't make sense. "So if you've checked Malfoy's draughts and they're okay, why not give them to me? I mean, either they're safe or they aren't, Professor."

"The Potions you need just now," Snape tightly announced, "are more potent than standard formulations. Draco is fully competent to brew them, but I have not allowed it because I knew it would make you uneasy. As indeed, it has."

Harry winced, and wasn't sure if it was at the mild rebuke, or the fact that Snape had just called Malfoy Draco. He didn't like that. "Sorry, sir."

"No more apologies," Snape said brusquely as he stood up. Funny, without the robes Harry had a much harder time hearing how he might be moving. "Are you all right to sleep, now, Harry?"

"I wanted to ask something else," Harry yawned. "Um, bunch of stuff, but I can't remember. Oh, the Portkey, that was it... hmm, something about the Portkey...?"

"I think it's time you rested," Snape remarked, learning over to help pull up his blankets and tuck him in. Another first, for Harry. Or maybe not. Snape had probably tucked him in at Devon. But nobody else had, not ever, except probably his parents, but it didn't count for much when you couldn't remember.

Even under the blankets, though, Harry started to shiver. He wanted Snape's warmth back.

His teacher must have figured the breezes were what was making him cold. Harry heard a brief series of Reparo spells, along with the noise of glass chinking itself back together, and could almost imagine the sight of the windows putting themselves to rights.

"Sorry about that," Harry murmured, forgetting that Snape had asked for no more apologies. "I wasn't trying to do that, at least, I don't think I was. I don't even know how I did it, really."

"I suspect I do," Snape muttered darkly. "But now is not the time. We will discuss it tomorrow."

"Promise? You won't disappear again?"

"I will bring your Eyesight Elixir," Snape assured him, and that time, Harry caught the subtle shift in the conversation. The Potions Master was veering it away from the personal into the impersonal. Well, okay. Harry could go along with that.

"Is that like the final step? I mean, tomorrow I'll be able to see?"

"I doubt matters will proceed quite so rapidly," Snape clarified. "The Restorative Potions have helped prepare your tissues, but it will take some time for the Elixir to take full effect." With that, Snape was helping him sit up a bit and pressing a vial into his hand. "Dreamless Sleep for tonight, but far more potent than the variety you once told me didn't work on you. Drink, Harry."

"I don't need it," Harry protested. "I won't have another nightmare, I don't think, not now I've talked to you."

"Nonetheless," his teacher drawled in that insistent voice he recognised. Giving in, Harry awkwardly tilted the vial and tipped the contents into his mouth. Hmm, it bubbled on his tongue a lot more than the regular kind. Tasted fruitier, too.

He almost thought Snape had left; Harry was so sleepy, it was hard to tell. But then a hand gently settled onto his forehead and stroked his hair back from his face. It felt nice.

"Will you promise me something, Harry?" Snape softly asked. "It's important."

"Promise?" Harry drowsily asked.

"Yes. Listen to Draco Malfoy when he comes to talk to you, all right? Will you do that?"

Harry thought hard about that, because he knew that something just wasn't right, something more than the obvious. The timing, that was it...

"You got me wuzzy first before asking," Harry announced in a voice that anyone but a Potions Master might have taken for falling-down-drunk. "That's not... nice, Pre.. er, Professor."

"Just tell me you'll speak with him--"

"Slytherin," Harry accused, a wave of silliness seeming to dance across his tongue. It loosened up his vocal cords, too. He'd never realised he knew so many nice S words. "Sly scheming 'spicious Slytherin. S---... um, sneaky snakey snarky snacky snooty snarley singy-songy Slyth'rin..."

He thought he heard his teacher mutter something like I do believe I got you a shade too "wuzzy," but he couldn't be sure of that, any more than he was sure about what happened next. He hadn't really felt what he'd thought, had he?

Nah, he decided. Couldn't be. Snape wouldn't lightly brush his lips against the scar on his forehead, would he? It was just the wuzziness of the potion making him feel warm and silly and happy, and well, not hated.

Not hated at all.

Harry giggled once or twice before falling into the happiest sleep he'd had in weeks.

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Coming Soon in A Year Like None Other:

Chapter Thirty: Draco

~

Comments very welcome,

Aspen in the Sunlight


Betaed by the Fabulous Mercredi.
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