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Wounds	By : KohakuShadow Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Snape Views: 11814 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, nor am I making any money off writing fanfiction for it. That's what makes it FANfiction, obviously. So leave me and my slashy little plot bunnies alone.

Chapter List
- 3
- 4
- 5
IV.
Close Quarters

Harry was ten minutes
early, but there was no sign of Snape. It was odd, Harry thought,
since he didn't seem to care much for leaving his office if food,
classes, or appointments weren't involved. Harry couldn't blame him.
If the heat got much worse he was going to start sleeping on the
dungeon stairs, just to be somewhere cool. The dry heat was
unprecedented. The grass on the Quidditch Pitch was starting to
brown. If it didn't rain soon...well, sufficed to say everyone
needed some reprieve.

He looked around the
office, patting some sweat off his brow and took a deep breath. If
only the whole castle could feel like this. There was a white
poultice sitting on the corner of the desk next to a stack of scrolls
that it seemed Snape had stopped halfway through grading. He
resisted the temptation to see if his was among them. Any grade
Snape gave him was bound to be a bad one, anyway. The table he'd
spent his last detention at was there, but pushed against the wall.
It didn't seem as if Snape had prepared anything for him yet. Odd,
seeing how perpetually prepared the man tended to be with everything.

His eyes wandered. A
pinstripe of light flickered toward the middle of the room from
behind a bookshelf. Harry moved closer carefully to find it revealed
a hidden door. He pushed it open and found Snape's personal quarters
on the other side. They were rather simple, warmer than he'd
expected--golden firelight danced around the room, making the drab
furnishings seem a bit more cheery. There was a small desk with neat
rows of beakers and vials on it, a shabby couch pushed up against the
wall to his right, and a four-poster bed draped in neutral, faded
colors, that he supposed might have been rather elegant when they
were new, but had lost any luster with age and lack of care. In the
far corner of a the room, a few piles of books were stacked in slight
disarray, with the topmost open and upended on the floor next to a
few shards of parchment and a quill. Ah, so there it was--Snape's
personality. There was always a little hint. The fact that Snape
had a desk but still chose to sit hunched on the floor with a pile of
books--that said something. It told Harry the man wasn't quite as
prim and proper as he'd like everyone to believe.

Harry blinked. Somehow
his feet had taken him into the rooms when they shouldn't have. If
Snape caught him there would be hell to pay. But this is what he had
wanted so badly when he'd egged Snape into giving him
detention--another glimpse of the real Snape that hid under layers of
bitter cruelty. The quiet, spartan room. Snape really didn't allow
himself any luxuries. Harry wondered what the man thought would
happen if he had them. Was he that afraid of dropping his guard?
Not many personal effects either. Harry supposed he probably didn't
own many and had felt no pressing need to acquire them. He could
somewhat understand. He didn't have much either. If it didn't fit in
his school trunk, it probably wasn't worth keeping.

A loud crash echoed
from behind one of the closed doors. A light came from underneath
it. The bathroom then, perhaps? If he listened, he could hear
running water. He ran over, about to speak, but then thought better
of it, pressing his ear against the door.

Severus groaned and
curled in on himself, clutching at the side of his neck. He was
beginning to feel like Nagini was going to haunt him for the rest of
his days with these sudden jolts of pain, but some part of him knew
that wasn't true. He was healing. The fever that had been edging at
him since this afternoon was proof of that. But the timing was
awful. He had that detention with Potter soon. When was that due
for? He didn't have much time, surely. Maybe half an hour, at most.
He'd lost track, stayed in the shower longer than he should have.

...and then fell out of
it when the wound suddenly seared and the fever dizziness crashed
over him anew. A purifying draught and a fever reducer. That's what
he needed, or at the very least, his wand, to cast a healing spell
that would get him through the next hour or so. His long fingers
reached up for the sink to haul himself to his feet and he cursed
under his breath. He should be well by now. He was not accustomed to
illnesses that held on so long, but if he had to admit it, he should
have been taking care of himself better, not letting his temper get
the best of him, for starters. He groaned again and sat up, raked
his quivering fingers back through his sopping hair, and finally
managed to get to his feet and clumsily pull his undergarments on.
He took a deep breath, glaring at his reflection as if demanding it
get better right this instant.

"Don't give me
that look, Severus," the mirror told him sternly. "I'm not
the one who's fumbling about in the bathroom when he knows full well
he ought to be in bed resting."

He offered the mirror a
few choice words in reply, then grasped his head and fell back onto
the toilet seat, slumping and willing the dizziness away. The
dizziness, apparently, did not much care for taking orders from the
likes of him. He released a shuddering breath, shivered. He needed
to get dressed or he was going to freeze, and stumbled a bit more.
His robes, if he could just get into his robes then he could gain
some semblance of normalcy. He took a few more deep breaths and
opened the bathroom door.

Harry Potter startled,
jumped backwards, and landed on his bum. "I...I...it's
not...because...Professor...I just...I heard a crash and..."
Harry floundered. Words failed him. Severus Snape was standing in
front of him, very nearly sopping wet, in his underwear. He opened
his mouth to try to finish his sputtering defense properly, but no
sound came out and he closed it again. Snape hadn't moved from the
doorway. His fingers were curled tightly around the jam. His entire
body seemed flushed. "...er..." There was a long silence.
Harry could hear his pulse thundering in his ears. "A-are you
alright, Professor? You...don't look quite...well."

Ebon eyes locked onto
his emerald ones. He didn't dare blink or move away. But after a
moment, there was a slight...sway. Snape's gaze lost it's usual
focused intensity. His grip on the door jam loosened.

It was instinct that
told Harry to rush forward then. He didn't quite make it to his
feet, but on his knees, he barely caught the larger man as he fell
forward. It was an awkward position. Really, he'd only managed to
save Snape's head and torso from contact wit the hard ground, and the
man was larger and heavier than he was. He didn't know how he was
supposed to release him without much clunking and thrashing about.
"...er...Professor?" Was he even conscious?

"...get your hands
off of me, Potter," Snape answered blearily.

Harry
almost laughed. Almost. If the situation weren't so...completely
bizarre he might have. "Uh, sorry Professor, but...I think I'd
better help you get into bed."

"...I do not
require..." Snape started to say, but his mind seemed to trail
off halfway through whatever bitter retort he was about to spit out.

"Listen, you can
dock me as many points and give me as many detentions as you want
later, okay? But if you don't lay down, I think I'm going to have to
tell Madam Pomfrey."

"You wouldn't
dare," Snape grimaced, using Harry's shoulders to force himself
back up to a more reasonable position. He got to his knees, but was
still uneven and slumped. Everything seemed slightly blurred, like
the edges were faded and only what was directly in front of him came
into sharp focus. He tried to blink it away. If the idiot boy told
Madam Pomfrey, he'd end up in the infirmary again, and god only knows
how long it would take him to convince her he was well enough to
leave this time when they both knew he hadn't really been well
enough to leave the first time.

Harry's rebellious
streak kicked in. "Oh yeah? Try me."

Silence was his answer.
Snape's fever-fogged brain couldn't come up with anything biting to
say, so he'd rather say nothing at all. Why? Wasn't it bad enough
that this boy brought out the worst in him without also continually
just happening across him when he was at his weakest? There was no
justice in the world at all.

"Come on,
Professor Snape, you can stand up, can't you?" Harry was trying
to tug him to his feet, one arm slung over his shoulders, but Severus
Snape was many times larger than he was, a full grown man rather than
just barely of age.

"Of course,"
Snape answered, full of bitter pride. He wavered a bit, but got to
his feet. Harry's guiding hand on his spine felt wonderfully cool
compared to his heated skin, which, he told himself, is the only
reason he was letting it remain there.

Harry brushed Snape's
robes to the floor and lowered his professor to the unmade bed. He
didn't know why his brain kept reminding him the man was very nearly
naked. It was like a scratched CD that gets stuck at one point and
just repeats it over and over again. Water droplets from Snape's
soaking hair had made a huge wet spot on Harry's shoulder. "Right
then, just lay down, sir," he said.

"Don't tell me
what to do, Potter." He was being stubborn for stubbornness's
sake, and they both knew it. He bent forward, as if seeing if he'd
be able to reach his robes from their heap on the floor without
standing up.

Harry pushed him back
against the bed. Snape's dark eyes widened, grabbing at the nearest
object for balance--which happened to be Harry's waist. Harry
blushed a bit as he found himself once again hovering a breath over
the man. At least he hadn't fallen onto his lips this time.
"...er...is there...anything you need? Water, or something?"

Snape gestured vaguely
at the small desk full of phials. "Fever Reduction Draught.
Surely you know what it looks like?"

Harry looked up at the
many colored liquids in the corner of the room. They very nearly
sparkled in the firelight. "Uh, it's...blue, isn't it?"

"Nngh. I'll get it
myself," Snape grunted as if Harry's answer had been hideously
wrong and tried to sit up again.

Harry pushed him back
down. "Just tell me what color it is. I'll get it."

"...green,"
Snape answered blearily. "Emerald, like your eyes. Surely you
know what green, looks like."

Harry bit back a
sarcastic remark, but only because Snape was so infirmed and stalked
over to the desk, picking vials up and swishing them around until he
found a small crystal vial filled with a deep green liquid. He
hurried back to the bed, where Snape lay, lips slightly parted,
breathing deeply, eyes closed. Had he fallen asleep so quickly?
Harry found his eyes roaming curiously over his professor's
features--sodden hair, slim hips, taut thighs. Harry shook his head,
why was he thinking about Professor Snape's shapely thighs? His eyes
shot back up, trailing over the pronounced collarbone, hooked--but
not wholly unpleasant--nose (in spite of what he often found himself
saying about it), brows etched over what he knew were penetrating,
liquid black eyes.

Snape's eyes peered
open narrowly. His chest rose and fell with his heavy breaths. He
could feel eyes on him, but he didn't know what the boy saw. No
doubt gloating over the power he held over him now, just like his
father would have done. "What are you staring at, Potter?"
he snapped.

"I...oh, you are
awake..." Harry stumbled. "I...er...I think this is the
right one. I...thought, if you were sleeping, maybe I oughtn't wake
you and..." He was holding out the vial awkwardly.

Snape forced himself
upward and snatched it, downing it in one gulp. The way his head
tilted back drew Harry's eyes to the angry red marks on his throat.
They still hadn't completely healed. When Snape had called the
healing process 'tedious' he hadn't been kidding. Muggle medicine
would have had him farther along than this by now. "Do they
hurt?" he blurted as Snape lowered himself back to the mattress.

He stared at Harry like
he was seeing him for the first time.

"Your wounds, I
mean. A-are they painful, Professor?"

The potion taking
effect and the pain beginning to ease somehow loosened his tongue.
"Sometimes," he answered. That's when he remembered.
"Bathroom. There are bandages in the cupboard. Get one for me."

"Y-yes sir."

When he returned, Snape
was resting his eyes again, but his breathing had evened and he had
managed to pull the sheet over his hips. Harry found himself somehow
grateful for that--there was something about the man's figure so
blatantly displayed that was highly distracting. But he heard Harry
and opened his eyes blearily, holding out his hand for the bandage.

"I'll do it,"
Harry said. "Even I'm not so 'grossly incompetent' that I can't
apply a bandage. Just...stay still, sir."

Snape wanted to
protest, he really did, but his eyes drooped. He normally watered
down his fever reducer--it lessened the effects somewhat, but at
least he could manage to keep himself conscious. Now it was all he
could do to roll his head to the side and expose the wound to be
covered.

Harry found he had to
steady himself as he pushed stray strands of hair from his
professor's throat, and applied the bandage as gently as possible
while keeping it firmly in place. It had to be uncomfortable, he
thought. Snape rolled his head back and stared up at Harry again.
There was a strange look in his eyes, not as forbidding as usual, far
less guarded. Harry's lips parted, but he found he was holding his
breath again. He couldn't bear to look into those eyes too long, and
eventually turned away, reaching for the blankets and pulling them
neatly up to Snape's chest. "Just...rest, Professor. We can
reschedule my detention for a time that's more convenient for you,
okay?"

"Why is it,
Potter, that you seem so fond of getting detentions, I wonder,"
Snape stated. The words were out before he could stop them.

"I wouldn't say
I'm fond of them..." Harry protested.

"You seemed to
take great efforts to get one yesterday."

"Well, I, that's
because I wanted to know how mad you were about, you know, the
kiss-type thing, from...you know, the match."

"Your continual
and extreme efforts to botch your potions and wreak havoc in my
classroom, I should think, is more cause for concern."

Harry's hand came to
his mouth and he snickered a bit. Snape frowned at him. "I'm
sorry!" he said. "It's just...you sort of sounded like
Professor McGonagall there."

"..." Snape
frowned a bit.

"I just, thought
maybe I'd be able to get more out of you about how you're recovering,
and stuff, if we were alone."

A bitter little smile
crossed Snape's lips. "Well, you certainly got that," he
answered dryly.

"Yeah..." A
long silence passed. "Are you sure you don't need me to get
Madam Pomfrey? Is a fever reduction draught going to be enough?"

"Feverishness is
proof that the healing process has finally begun," Snape
answered blandly. Stop fidgeting with your sleeve like that."

"I, what, oh."
Harry tried to settle his hands.

"Lily used to do
that."

Harry's eyes widened.
"She did?"

"Occasionally."
Snape's eyes were drooping, but he fought to keep them open.

"Uh, sir. About my
mother...you..."

Snape pat his hand
unconsciously. "I see so much of her in you."

Harry's eyes widened.
Snape's lips had curled the barest hint upwards when he said that,
but then his eyes fell closed again.

"I...professor?"

Snape didn't answer.

"Sir?"

His head fell to the
side and his breathing began to deepen.

'He
just...fell asleep in the middle of a conversation! And after saying
something like that! He's so...'
But Harry wasn't sure what word to use to describe Severus Snape now.
It had been an accident, but he thought he learned a bit more about
Snape tonight. He just couldn't really put into words what he'd
learned, exactly. He thought it would be best if he left while Snape
was still asleep and carefully closed the hidden door behind him.
His mind raced as he headed back towards Gryffindor Tower. That was
the first time Snape had ever compared him to his mother. He
compared him to his father a lot, but only the worst aspects of his
father. His mother though, Snape had cared deeply for his mother.
Harry couldn't reconcile the words with the way Snape treated him.
If he'd loved Harry's mother, and he reminded Snape of her, shouldn't
he be a little more
agreeable? Or maybe it just reminded Snape that the woman he'd loved
had died. Or maybe...!

Harry had an epiphany
as he caught his reflection in a decorative mirror he'd just passed.
He looked like his father, but with his mother's eyes. Maybe, for
Snape, Harry was a painful reminder that Lily Evans had loved someone
else, and that that someone was James Potter had been a sort of slap
in the face, hadn't it?

But he wasn't just
James and Lily's son. He was something separate from either of them.
He was Harry. If Snape had been dwelling on the past for so long,
then wouldn't the present seem like something forbidding and foreign,
something frightening? Something to be beaten into submission and
eventually destroyed...

Harry
bit the inside of his cheek. It was late. He wasn't really all that
analytical a guy most of the time. He was probably just trying to
make up theories that would make the man more likable. 'Well,
his body is sure likable, in any case,'
he thought, and again his thoughts startled him and his cheeks
flushed. He shook his head. "Gah! What am I thinking about?"
he yelped.

"Gah! What am I
thinking about? is not the password," a drowsy voice said.

He startled, looking up
at the portrait. "Oh, I, I'm sorry, uhm, balderdash."

The fat lady's portrait
swung open and let him in before going back to sleep.

In the common room, Ron
and Hermoine startled and looked up at him.

"Harry! It's so
late, we were getting worried," Hermoine said.

"I bet he was
absolutely wretched to you after today, wasn't he?" Ron asked.

"I, no, we've got
to reschedule it for another day," Harry explained. He felt
dazed and disjointed, like someone else was talking out of his mouth.
There was just a sort of unreality around him.

"What, then where
were you all this time?" Ron insisted.

"I well, in his
quarters."

"In
his quarters?!"
both of his friends echoed in shock.

"Shh! It was an
accident. He isn't well." He shook his head of his thoughts. He
had to explain properly. He knew any second Hermoine would say...

"Harry, you're not
making any sense."

Yeah, that's it, she'd
gone and said it.

"He
said he sees a lot of my mother in me. That I fidget the same way
she did, and stuff." He'd blurted it out suddenly, which made
it feel all the more real. His chest ached. He hesitated. "Snape,
he...he was in love with my mum, did I ever tell you?" He
didn't know if he had.

Ron and Hermoine
exchanged a look as if neither of them quite knew how they should
reply. Eventually Hermoine said, "Harry, you look exhausted.
You should get some sleep. You can tell us all about it tomorrow,
okay?"

"Yeah. Right.
Tomorrow. Okay then." Now that she mentioned it, he did feel a
bit tired--lethargic, really. Sleep would probably help sort his
thoughts.

Ron had to kind of
nudge him up the stairs. He was so out of it that he collapsed on the
bed without changing out of his robes and fell almost instantly
asleep. He dreamed of his mother, of Snape in his underwear at a
Quidditch game, and of a number of other things that were highly
inappropriate and could not be mentioned in polite company.

When he awoke, his
pulse was racing and his throat was dry. "Blast," he
muttered under his breath. "Why him?"

It
felt unaccountably chilly, considering they'd been in the middle of a
heat wave for weeks. He sat up, pushed the bed's curtain aside, and
looked out the window. It was finally raining. 'If only
the past could be washed away as easily as the heat,'
Harry thought, finally understanding that what he wanted out of
Severus Snape had nothing at all to do with his parents, or how much
he resembled either of them.
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Wounds