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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
- 4
- 5
- 6
V.
Passion for Potions

It was four days before
Severus Snape emerged from his quarters again. Harry had been nervous
and anxious to see him the morning after their most unusual
detention, wondering how hateful Snape would be--and sure it would be
considerable--but also hoping to see him and know that he was quite
alright. But no one saw Snape again for four days. He
wasn't in the infirmary; Harry had checked. He had half a mind to go
down and check his office, his quarters, but any time he thought he
might be able to sneak away, he realized what a horrible idea it was.
If Snape was really ill, he should just let him rest. But what if,
like that night, he couldn't even lift himself enough to get his own
potion? What if he needed more made, but couldn't do it himself?
What if that bandage had been festering on his wound all this time
without being changed? There were a lot of what-if's, not least of
which seemed to be 'what if I'm falling in love with him?'

It
seemed ludicrous. There was a time the very idea would have made him
laugh until he choked. But now? Well, things change. He didn't know
if it was love, but there was a dangerous attraction he'd been
denying for too long. Now that he saw it for what it was he could
barely contain it, and that in itself was immensely depressing.
'Because the one Snape loves is my mom, even now. Probably
always.' The parts of him that
Snape liked, they weren't the parts that were 'Harry', they were the
parts that reminded him of Lily. He'd said as much in his
fever-induced delirium: 'I see so much of your mother in
you.'

Harry sighed. There was
an audible gasp. He startled and looked up to find Professor
Trelawney's magnified eyes. "Mr. Potter, I sense great suffering
about you. Torment."

"Yeah. Yeah, I
know," Harry muttered. She did like predicting his impending
demise. He would rather cut her off before she predicted that he was
going to be murdered by his potions professor. "That's me,"
he said, "One big ball of misery. You're exactly right,
Professor."

She looked taken aback.
It was so rare that someone told her she was 'right' she didn't seem
to know how to take it. Somehow, Harry's fit of depression had earned
Gryffindor ten points for 'the bravery to accept the fate the stars
have laid out for you' or some such nonsense. He wouldn't complain.
As many as he'd lost to Snape these past weeks it was oddly
comforting to know he'd earned a few of them back, even if Professor
Trelawney was still a deluded old bat if she thought she could really
see the future.

Soon afterwards, he and
Ron headed out of the tower and towards the Great Hall. Harry was so
downtrodden he didn't even notice Snape walking in the opposite
direction until he heard, "...Potter."

Harry nearly jumped out
of his skin. Snape was staring down his nose at him with his usual
air of superiority. "Ah, sir, hello!" he blurted.

He'd been about to add
'are you feeling well?' but Snape's words cut him off. "Your
detention will be rescheduled for this evening at seven. I expect you
to be punctual, as always."

He strode of, leaving
Harry standing slack-jawed. Had Snape just admitted that Harry was
'punctual'? But more than that, what was that detention going to
entail? Just how much of that night did Snape remember? "Ah,
yes sir!" Harry blurted like he was in boot camp, already
feeling humiliated by his startled tone.

Ron gave him a look.
"Awfully jumpy lately, aren't you?"

"I, well...it's
hard to predict his moods, you know?"

"Not really.
Seems to me like his mood is just plain sour, all the time."

"Well...some days
are better than others, though."

"You're
still thinking about what he said about your mum. It's Snape
we're talking about here."

"I
know," Harry snipped. "You don't have to remind me."
Ron just didn't understand! There was more to Severus Snape than
being a sullen bastard, or a greasy git as Sirius had always called
him. A lot more. He just didn't want anyone to see it. What was in
his heart and, the things he thought about when he was alone,
and...all the other things that you had to know a person, really
know them, to understand. The subtleties. ...subtlety. Harry nearly
laughed at himself. Snape had always said he had no 'subtlety'.
Maybe that was true, but, he could learn to appreciate the subtle
things, couldn't he? In someone else...if they were worth it. 'Who
am I trying to kid?' he thought.
'Even if I know how I feel, that feeling's never going to
be mutual. Even if he learns to like me a little, it'll only be the
parts of me that remind him of my mum.'
It wasn't good enough. What he wanted wasn't to be a replacement.
First his father, now his mother. For a moment, in a fit of temper,
Harry once thought that Severus Snape saw him for who he was. He knew
better now. Snape was too trapped in the past to ever really
look at what was right in front of him.

The last two times
Harry pushed open this dungeon door, things had gone terribly wrong.
Perhaps that is why he hesitated tonight. He steeled himself and
eased it open. When he did, he let out a breath he hadn't known he
was holding. Again.

Severus Snape was
standing by that side table, setting up a row of potion vials.
Several colors twinkled in the light of the wall torches. His posture
was good, Harry thought, better than it had seemed in quite some
time. He seemed less tense. Harry watched the slender fingers arrange
the bottles so they were all pointing in the same direction in their
metal rack, obsessively perfect.

"...er,
Professor...?" he didn't know why he was so clumsy with words
anymore. No, he knew. It was because he knew.
The reasons his pulse always raced around Snape no longer had very
much to do with righteous anger.

Snape raised a hand to
silence him and Harry found himself instantly clamming up. "To
get the matter out of the way in advance," Severus said, "Yes,
my fever has broken. Yes, I have been taking care of myself. Yes,
Nagini's bites still hurt at times, but they are healing well and I
expect to be able to leave them to the open air by the middle of next
week at the absolute latest. Now, unless you have other questions,
Potter, take a seat at the table."

Harry flushed, having
run out of anything to immediately ask. Snape hadn't answered how
much he remembered of the last time they'd been alone together, but
he hadn't really given him much of an opening to ask about it. He
felt hypersensitive to the man's presence, even though Snape seemed
to be doing his best to act as if nothing out of the ordinary had
particularly happened between them.

"Now," Snape
continued, placing parchment and quill in front of Harry. "Since
you proved your ineptitude when last we met, by not even having the
ability to identify a simple fever reducer, you will have the next
quarter of an hour to identify for me the twenty potions I've placed
on the table. As you can see, the phials are numbered. Write the
number of the phial, and the potion, or poison, that it contains. How
you do will determine how we spend the rest of this detention."

Harry opened his mouth
to say something, but Snape flipped a small hourglass and said,
"Begin," before he had the chance. He started scribbling
away his answers. The third was the same fever reducing draught that
he had given to Snape last time, so that was easy, and the minty
green was obviously the purifying draught they'd learned not too long
before. He identified the calming draught easily, and was a bit less
certain about the elixir to induce euphoria, but was pretty sure
about it. Veritaserum, that was another that he was familiar with on
all too personal a level. Most of the answers, when his time was up,
he was fairly confident of. Snape's vague hint that some were
poisons had helped, but a few...well, he just hoped he hadn't missed
anything too obvious lest Snape try to terrorize him. He no longer
cared about this tendency. He knew that Snape had spent so much of
his life feeling small that it was some kind of defense to keep
people from getting close enough to make him feel that way again. He
didn't know why it had taken so long for him to notice. Once he did,
it seemed obvious.

He sat tensely as his
Potions Professor marked the page off with stern, red ink. Snape's
hand stopped, hovering over one of the questions Harry was fairly
certain he'd gotten wrong. His lips pursed. "Draught of Peace,
Potter?" he said at last. "If you don't know an answer,
I'd rather you didn't just scratch out the first potion that comes to
mind." He put his quill down and Harry tried to fight a blush,
but the blush was winning.

"So, uh, not even
close, huh?" Harry asked as Severus got up and moved toward the
table, lifting phial #12.

"Hardly,"
Snape answered blandly. "Well then, perhaps with a little
experience you'll be able to
identify it properly."

Harry blanched. Snape
was going to make him take some unknown potion? Or poison? What
exactly was in that phial? Certainly nothing that would be too
damaging, nothing that he didn't have an antidote ready for.
"But...sir..."

"Relax, Potter.
It won't kill you." He pulled out the cap. "The only way
you ever seem to learn anything is from first-hand experience, so may
as well give you some. We have covered this in class, if you'd
deigned to pay attention on that day you might not be having trouble
with it now."

Harry swallowed a lump
in his throat. "But...Professor Snape..." he hedged.

Snape pressed the open
phial into his hand. "A small sip will suffice. That should be
enough for you to determine what it is by how your body reacts to it,
hm?" He gestured for Harry to hurry and drink.

Snape remembered. He
must. He was trying to humiliate Harry somehow, the Gryffindor was
certain of it. Bully him into never speaking of their last encounter
to anyone without saying so. Harry felt a lump in his throat. He
wasn't afraid of Snape, and he didn't generally take bullying. He
stared back aggressively. He would accept the challenge. He was no
coward. But...this aspect of Snape is what made him curse
his...apparently very unique...tastes. Why did it have to be someone
who went out of his way to make Harry suffer? Someone so...

He cut off his line of
thought, recklessly tilting up the bottle, and taking...a rather
larger swig than he should have.

"Potter, not that
much!" Snape declared, but too late, the whole contents of the
bottle had already disappeared down Harry's throat. Heat coiled in
his stomach and spread out in wispy tendrils to his chest, his
fingers and toes. He felt a smug satisfaction at the minor panic in
his potions professor's eyes.

"So, even you can
wear such a cute expression," he said before his brain caught up
with his mouth.

"Excuse me?!"
Snape said, looking accosted.

"Don't complain
now. You brought this on yourself, didn't you?" Harry could
barely keep track of what he was saying. He felt heated, reckless,
like no matter what he said or did, the circumstances of those
actions would be irrelevant until much, much later. It wasn't like
Felix Felicis, where he knew nothing he did could have ill effects.
What he felt was more like a complete disregard for the consequences
of his actions.

"Always so
defensive. Built your walls up so high so no one could get to you.
Make your plans, but they don't always work out, do they? Don't
always go the way you thought they would. And it makes you furious
when you think you've lost control of a situation."

"You, shouldn't
have taken so much. You won't be able to think clearly in this
condition," Snape said, fumbling into his desk for the antidote.
No, this isn't how it should have gone. When he saw what he'd
missed, some part of Snape had known it was a bad idea, but he felt
like Harry might accidentally admit to some small offense or other,
something he could use against the boy if he needed it, and what was
the worst that could happen? But this...that cocky smirk. The way
the boy was trying to expose his weaknesses right off the bat. No,
this couldn't be allowed to continue.

He startled when he
felt the boy behind him, wrapping his arms around his midsection.
When had he gotten up. "Unhand me!" he heard his voice
squeak a little and was disconcerted by his changed tone, trying to
get his voice back to normal, his pulse steady, but Harry's breath
cascaded over his earlobe and he barely repressed a shudder.

"But I affect you,
don't I, Professor? I've always affected you. Maybe not in the way
I'd like, but you still can't help but take notice of me."

"I have no idea
what you're talking about," Snape denied, but they both knew it
was a blatant lie.

"When you compared
me to my mother the other day, I was happy. You'd finally compared me
to something you'd loved, rather than something you'd hated."

"Potter, let go of
me. I need to give you the antidote," he tried to struggle free
of Harry's grip, but just as he managed to break free and turn around
when Harry wrapped his arms around him again.

Snape tensed.

"You're always so
guarded. It's nice to see even you can get flustered like this,"
Harry continued. "I want to see you make all kinds of
expressions. It'd be great, if I could be the one to pull them out of
you."

What was this? He
hadn't expected this. Snape's pulse was thundering in his throat, as
if trying to escape. Harry's hand came up to caress his cheek. He
swatted it away, but it came right back. He swatted it away again.
"Stop that. Let go of me and take the antidote." He held
the pale gold liquid up. "The whole of it, I should think, is
for the best."

"And if I refuse?"
Harry quipped. "What will you do then?"

"I will have to
force you."

"Oo," Harry
smirked. "Sounds kinky. Are you going to be half-naked again?
I'd rather like that."

Snape found his face
turning red up to the ears. "What did you just say to me?!"

"That you can
force me to do whatever you want," Harry answered. "If
you're naked for it."

"Mr.
Potter, that is quite
enough!" Severus pushed back against Harry's shoulders.

"Oh fine. I'll
take your silly antidote...if you kiss me first."

"Excuse
me?"

"I know,"
Harry's mood seemed to shift rather quickly. "If anything, I'm
only a replacement for you. I know my mum is the one you loved. If
it makes you feel better to pretend that I'm her, then I don't mind,
as long as you don't say her name. I have her eyes, right? So it
should be easy." Harry couldn't even quite register what he was
saying. The words were flooding out of him like someone had
punctured a hole in his chest and all of his desire was just spilling
out of it. All his worries, too. He somehow knew, in the back of his
mind, that he'd already said too much, that if he said more, Snape
would probably never speak to him again. He felt feverish, but he
also felt somehow, as if he could just get some kind of affection
from Snape, even if it was pitying and half-assed, that all would be
right with the world.

Snape finally struggled
free and forced Harry down into his chair. He had to plant his knee
on the joint of Harry's pelvis to keep him from getting up again, and
very nearly yelped in horror when he felt a strong hand on his
bottom.

"You
are yourself, Harry
Potter. No one else. Now take the damned antidote and come back to
your senses, idiot boy." He forced Harry's mouth open and
poured the bottle of cool liquid down his throat.

'You
are yourself, Harry Potter. No one else.'
Something about those words as Snape said them and called him an
idiot echoed through his psyche as the world filtered back to
normalcy. Harry's face reddened brightly and he realized all the
things he'd just said to the Potions Master. "I...er...uhm..."

Snape got off of him
and dusted himself off, fixing his rumpled robes.

"...that is to
say..." Harry stumbled a bit more.

"You may go, Mr.
Potter," Snape stated coldly, as if his tone could somehow will
Harry out of his presence.

"Professor,
what...was that potion?"

"Wasn't that my
question to you?" Snape snipped back.

"I...uhm...Amorentia?"
he asked. "Or...some kind of love potion?" His cheeks were
bright when he said this, praying he would be so lucky as to have
something to blame his uncharacteristic words on.

"Hardly,"
Snape answered blandly. He didn't seem to want to tell Harry what
he'd just ingested. It would be...far kinder to both of them if he
didn't know. "You will feel edgy for a few hours. I suggest a
good night's rest. In the morning you should be fine. That
was...rather more than a dose, you ingested. I didn't dilute it to
keep the color true. A worthless effort. You still haven't the
faintest idea what it was."

"Then
tell me. What was
that potion, Professor Snape? You thought I might learn something,
right? So..."

Snape sighed a bit, not
bothering to look at Harry. He busied himself tidying up instead.
"It is called Heartshorne," he said at last. "Under
its influence, it is...quite difficult to keep matters of the heart
to oneself."

"Quite difficult
to..." Harry echoed, letting the words sink in. His face
flushed. He had a vague memory of Hermoine mentioning it when she
saw it on the syllabus. It was a potion that exposed a person's
concerns, their desires. It wasn't a truth serum, really, there was
no telling what you might spew out under the effects of heartshorne.
She'd called it 'a rather humiliating potion, for the most part. You
tend to reveal your personal feelings without concern for yourself or
others, or so I've read.' Which meant, Harry realized, that Snape
knew all of what Harry had just said was brutally true. His face
flushed to a ridiculous shade of red and he ran from the office,
barreled out of the dungeons, and once back at Gryffindor Tower
plowed straight up to bed, refusing to acknowledge anyone for the
rest of the night. How humiliating! How could Snape do that to him!
He felt like he might cry, but his battered pride couldn't stand the
thought of caving any further.

He hardly slept that
night. His mind went over the events. No, Snape hadn't done it to
him. It was the answer he, himself had gotten wrong because he'd
been too busy trying to get detention to pay attention to the lecture
that day. Snape had paused when he'd seen it. But had Snape known he
would get it wrong? If he'd gotten something else wrong, would he
have chosen that instead. And Snape HAD told him only to take a
'small sip' not chug the whole bottle like he did. He couldn't keep
blaming Snape for everything. But even if he tried to convince
himself it wasn't Snape's fault this had happened, he still didn't
know how he could ever face the man again, after all the things he'd
said, all the things Snape now knew--like how he felt about him.
He'd come onto Snape so brazenly. Tried to expose him, tried to get
some response out of him. What exactly had he been hoping would
happen? That potion didn't let him think about anything but the
present. Humiliating? No. Mortifying? Not quite. Devastating. Yes,
that's the word he was looking for. A mere few moments under it's
effects and Harry felt as if his heart had been torn from his chest
and tossed to the floor. Someone had danced an exuberant jig on it,
and then slammed it back into his chest on the end of a battering
ram.

The
next day, he pretended to have a bad cold so he didn't have to leave
his four-poster and risk running into the man who had wreaked such
havoc on his emotions. If only he could be angry at Snape for it.
He knew he should be furious. But when he remembered how much he'd
made Snape struggle to get him to take the antidote before he said
anything too damaging, all the rage just seeped right out of him. If
he could just go back to hating Snape, maybe he wouldn't have to feel
like he understood how the older man must have felt about his mother.
Hate would be so much easier
than love.
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Wounds